What was your first camera ?

swanseamale47 said:
Chinon were very underated, really good camera, I know the shutters were made by Pentax in the ce4 and later (maybe earlier too)
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Their first really successful SLR was the Chinonflex TTL: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Chinonflex_TTL

This was sold under a plethora of brand names, the best known in Britain being the Prinzflex TTL, which was Dixons's flagship "own brand" offering at the end of the 1960s. A schoolfriend of mine had one of those and I was very jealous of the Prinzflex's instant return mirror, which my Pentacon lacked.
 
I would borrow various family cameras, a Kodak 127 stands out and I think we still have the odd square format slide or two from it. Age 12 I was given a second hand Yashica 35ME camera of similar capability to an original Olympus Trip but with CDS metering rather than the Trip's selenium cell, I still have that camera somewhere last used 10 or 15 years ago just to see if it still worked, which it did. A couple of years later my parents got me a S/H Praktica Super TL but what I really wanted was a Yashica FR1 many hours of gardening, painting houses and dog walking got me that Yashica FR1.
There followed a Yashica FR, the FR1 was traded for a Contax RTS, the FR was stolen and replaced by a Contax 137ma, may last C/Y body was an Aria which I still occasionally use.
 
A kodak 110 and moved on to a Yashica FR1 then Contax 139 and RTS.
 
Norkie said:
They have one of those in our museum here Gramps :eek:
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There's one here been stashed in cupboard under stairs for 50 years to my knowledge.
I aren't sure if it wasn't left by previous occupants but my Grandad took quite a lot of photos in the 30s and 40s - however they look too good to be from that.
 
The first one I remember using was my great grandmothers olympus trip, which at the age of six, I went off out at 5am to catch a sunrise (only just out the back gate and I couldn't sleep)
After that I had a couple of cheap, snappysnaps type things. My first proper camera is the Canon EOS5 that I got about fifteen years ago, which died last year.
 
swanseamale47 said:
Chinon were very underated, really good camera, I know the shutters were made by Pentax in the ce4 and later (maybe earlier too)
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I had a couple of Chinon lenses, a 50mm f1.4 and 28mm f2.8. The 28mm was rather par for the course but the 50mm f1.4 was very good and stood comparison against any other film era 50mm I had.
 
My first camera was a Zorki 4 with a Jupiter 8 lens. Acquired 1966 in think. Changed this for a Canon AT1 in about 1977 fitted with a 50mm lens
 
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The first camera I bought was the rather cheap and nasty Halina Paulette:
halina paulette clean.jpg
 
mstphoto said:
I had the CP 7 before I fell heir to a pile of Canon gear.
Loved that camera :love:
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I think mine was the CP7M which was a bit of a ripoff of the T70.

My wife dropped it out of the top of a wardrobe which led to an insurance claim, a brief try with a modern Pentax (bought on the basis of compatibility but was an awful lie) and then a Canon EOS 300 (I think) which started my Canon habit which lasted through several film SLRs then onto 300d, 20d, 40d, 7d, 6d, R6 (I’ve missed some out)
 
Phil V said:
I think mine was the CP7M which was a bit of a ripoff of the T70.

My wife dropped it out of the top of a wardrobe which led to an insurance claim, a brief try with a modern Pentax (bought on the basis of compatibility but was an awful lie) and then a Canon EOS 300 (I think) which started my Canon habit which lasted through several film SLRs then onto 300d, 20d, 40d, 7d, 6d, R6 (I’ve missed some out)
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Yes, that's the one (y)
My one is lying in a gully on the Aonach Eagach, Glencoe, after falling out of my backpack while scrambling over the pinnacles.
Shame really as I'd love to see the photos :(
 
sphexx said:
620 folding Brownie (new) like this one though I don’t think it has the Dakon lens:

https://flic.kr/p/gLWnBD
View: https://flic.kr/p/gLWnBD


Quick snap of ancient (1950 ish) contact print from same of my baby brother, now also ancient in the garden of the house we returned to after it was repaired following the blast from a V1 launched from a Heinkel (spellchecker wants to change it Heineken, if only ) 111 aircraft over the North Sea and supposed to land on East Anglia and was the first V1 to land on Hayes, Kent, possibly due to the misinformation we were feeding the Germans that the vengeance weapons were overshooting their targets.

83B8A5AF-299F-46B3-9E6A-1639F78FEC6D.jpeg

83B8A5AF-299F-46B3-9E6A-1639F78FEC6D.jpeg

Folding Kodak Brownie 620. 1950 ish
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I notice no one has posted a TLR I think (cue hordes of Rolleis) but my baby brother in that photo had a Kodak Brownie Reflex (not this one, but like), 127 film:

https://flic.kr/p/4SQRcJ
View: https://flic.kr/p/4SQRcJ
 
My first camera was a Red Halina 160 I remember it was brought from a camera shop in Chester in 1988 on the way by boat to the IWA Castlefeild we travelled up the Mancester Ship Canal from Ellsemere Port with around 70 other Narrowboats, as a 9 year old it was quite an experiacne expically the locks with all the boats travelling up the shipa canal only filling a tiny area of the locks!

42_08jpg by Mark Gameson, on Flickr

I recently brought one for my collection jI actually plan to put a film through it at some point in the future.
 
I used a Kodak instamatic with flash cubes on a school trip and stuff like that.
My first camera was an Olympus OM10 bought for my 18th birthday. I traded that in for an OM2SP which I loved but sold as with young kids I had to choose between photography and mountain bike racing.
I restarted photography about 20 years later to photograph things I was making.
 
Boots 126....

Then I was given a Kodak Retinette, followed by a Kodak Retina Reflex S (both of which I still have)...

First one I bought for myself - Chinon CP-7m.
 
I'm sure this needs no introduction.


film100_l.jpg
 
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jNGspa]FED 4 by Terence Rees, on Flickr[/URL]


A FED 4L in 1982.

My dad bought it for me for a Spanish Exchange I went on at 14 years of age.

Unfortunately most shots came out with a black out towards the right of the image.

Fast forward a few years and I found the above example a couple of years ago in a local 2nd hand shop for £30.

So I thought I'd buy it for nostalgic reasons and put a film through it.

Yep, most of the shots had a black out on the right hand side of the prints.

So either they all have a dicky shutter after a while or I bought the same one as in 1982.

I think the former's more likely.
 
One Christmas when I was about 12 I was gifted a Zenith EM which I had for a number of years. Because of this when I started my YouTube channel I made sure the first camera I looked at was a Zenith but it was an ET. Similar but made for the domestic market.
 
The first one I can remember was a Brownie 127. Various 110's and similar and then my first serious camera was a Praktica SLR (forget the model) with the old screw mount!

C7FD22FF-1BC3-4123-95DA-AE9E02DD0589.jpeg
 
I was scanning some slides last weekend and came across a photo of my dad with my first camera. It was a Rollei Magic TLR that he gave me for my 10th birthday. I still have it and it works perfectly. I took the photo with his camera, a beautiful white Ilford Advocate. Annoyingly, he was a far better photographer than I'll ever be. He had an artistist's eye that I lack.

52861400052_e7b3126387_z.jpg
 
Flighter said:
My first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 28, made in England, and just unearthed from the loft!


And for good measure, my Mum's Dacora Instacora F, made in West Germany (found when I was digging out my Instamatic).
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Out of interest I purchased a 3D printed adapter to use 35mm in an Instamatic camera and tried it out on both cameras. I struggled to load it, working in a changing bag, with a strip cut from the start of a 100ft bulk roll, hence all the marks and scratches.

The scans are rectangular, not square, as when using 35mm film the top of the image ends up over one set of sprocket holes and therefore isn't scanned by my scanner. To be fair, I'm guessing the Nikon CoolScan wasn't aimed at connoisseurs using high end gear like the Kodak Instamatic 28! :ROFLMAO:

Two from the Kodak Instamatic 28, both taken on the sunny setting on an overcast day, Exeter Pan 400 XX developed in Ilford Microphen …IMG_8834.jpeg
IMG_2023-10-01-134943.jpeg

… and two from the Dacora Instacora F, also Exeter Pan 400 XX developed in Ilford Microphen.IMG_8836.jpegIMG_8835.jpeg
The last one was taken using the cloudy setting which, as far as I can tell from the internet, reduces the shutter speed from 1/90 sec to 1/30 sec and I've had a bit of movement when taking the picture.
 
Agilux Agima
Practika Nova 1b
Fujica ST701
Canon AE1
Rollei 35

long break

D90
D800 & D500
Z9
 
First camera I actually owned was a Pentax Auto 110 Super. Was surprisingly good considering it was 110. Exposure was generally spot on, much better than most 35mm compacts at that time, and the lens was excellent, so actual prints looked better than most 35mm compacts too.

PentaxAuto110Super-9.jpg
 
Norkie said:
They have one of those in our museum here Gramps :eek:
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I suspect mine might have been the same thing. Good old Brownie! Your asking me to remember to long ago. Firstr decent camera I got I can't remember the name of. Got it while stationed in Germany, ah, Voitlander. That thing took some really nice photo's.
 
My first camera, in about 1977, was a Yashica J SLR with M42 lenses. No exposure meter; I think I used it with a Leningrad hand-held meter. For my 18th birthday I was given a secondhand Canon AE-1. At the time I thought it was good having a built-in meter, but looking back many of the landscape shots were underexposed as the meter was influenced too much by the sky and I didn’t understand how to correct that. It didn’t help that I was shooting slide film and hadn’t heard of graduated neutral density filters. A few years later I added a Canon T70 and an Olympus XA.

My photography was rubbish until I took a course with the Open College of the Arts in about 2007.
 
Sky said:
My dad gave me a little Halina 35X with a hotshoe mounted rangefinder in '67, but my first SLR was the Olympus OM1 I bought with my own earnings in '73. Having changeable lenses was real eye-opener for me and it set me on a lifelong love of taking pictures.
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Me too. Absolutely rubbish! A Xmas present in 1962. Although it was new, the shutter was not opening properly and the focussing ring was so stiff it was almost impossible to use easily. Quickly replaced for a Fed 2. Kept that for a couple of years and the rest is history
 
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David_Mug said:
A Coronet Box Camera. 6x9 negs on 120 film, bought for me by my Nan at a jumble sale. Set off something in me which has given immense pleasure for more than 50 years.

Still using 120 film!
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Well I can't remember my first camera but do remember using this Coronet:-
www.talkphotography.co.uk

The 5 Best 35mm Film cameras for beginners.

Not sure if this has been posted before: https://thehhub.com/2018/07/22/the-5-best-35mm-film-cameras-for-beginners/?fbclid=IwAR2-bAH4KICla53otETxbs62LQ1vQDzGgwr33XTmUa8r1hmJzmbxjqyhLH8
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk
 
Kodak Brownie 127, then a Halina 35x. My brother probably wrecked the Brownie by dropping it, and so has done with other cameras I passed on to him. The 35X just packed up one day and I bought a Zenit B.
 
My Dad bought me an Olympus Pen EE in about 1968 when we lived in Singapore. Took half frame slides with it. Still got it and it looks to be in a good condition. I might try getting a roll of film for it.
 
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