Chicken or egg? - RFF and you

Bought my first M3 back 1989. So the camera came first. However, I do have to say that this site (and what I've learned here) has fueled many a lens and camera purchase. Life was so much simpler.
 
I started out with a box brownie, progressed to a cheap russian Zenith SLR, then a Pentax ME Super, but was not happy with either my results or the 'feel' of the camera. I sold my SLR and started using my fathers old Yashica GTN - much happier, better results and a joy to use. I have used this camera for over 20 years, then I started to look at digital, but just could not find what I wanted which was a digital Yashica GTN (this was back in 2003!, long before the RD1) I always used to shoot colour slide - ektachrome, but was slowly looking at B+W again (I used to shoot B+W in the early 80's) and one day via google I found RFF.

RFF opened my eyes to the wonderful world of other RF cameras apart from the GTN, and the enthusiasm of the other members was infectious. I eventually took the plunge and bought a R3A, going against the (then) feeling that film was obsolete. I have since never looked back. I love using RF's and I love using film (B+W re-found the love)

Without the happenstance of finding RFF I do beleive that I might have given up my search and succumbed to a dSLR. I really doubt that I would be finding my photography as enjoyable as it is now if I had gone down this route...
 
I think I owned my himatic first, then found RFF. but RFF has really renewed my interest in rangefinders, I had given up on the himatic before then. Now I intend to eventually buy a interchangeable lens rangefinder, am just saving my money at the moment.
 
I had found Cameraquest one day when searching for information on Leica M cameras, and found Steve's page on the 1970's compacts first. I had bought a Canonet QL17 GIII shortly after, and found RFF while searching further info on the canon, as I was looking for a manual.

The rest they say is history.
 
My father's zorki 4 introduced me to photography at the age of 12.
Six years later I bought my first camera, a Pentax K1000. I used SLR's all these years. A few months ago bought a zorki 4, not intending to have it as a user camera, just to bring my youth memories back. Trying to find information about refurbishing the zorki, I found RFF.
Here I learned that the RF world is enthusiastic, alive and well, and admired the spectacular photography made with rangefinders at the gallery.
So, that was it, i am back to rangefinders. Because my zorki is very unreliable, i bought a mint Bessa R3M with 50 heliar from a RFF member a few days ago and i am ready to develop my first 2 rolls shot with the bessa. 🙂
 
I found RFF trying to find out what a 'rangefinder' was! I did end up buying a Vivitar 35ES as an introduction. Sadly, I was stupid enough to leave it my glovebox and it was stolen.

The gallery here was a breath of fresh air compared to photo.net- another attraction!
 
Chicken if you're a "creationist"; egg if you're an "evolutionist" (the first chicken having been hatched from an egg layed by a pre-chicken species via mutation by natural selection.)

Unless you believe eggs were created first...🙂

Aaaanyyyyooooo, I bought a Zorki IV with Jupiter 8 lens back in the early 1990's, so I suppose I'm a creationist.🙂

~Joe
 
I came in the long way 'round: My first "for-real" camera was a second (third? Fourth?)-hand Yashica 5000e Lynx, which, as I've mentioned in a few other threads, had a habit of breaking a lot. It was replaced by a used black Yashica GT kit (with the screw-on wide and tele lenses, external VF for same, and fitted hard case for everything to go in). That was more reliable, but then I came into a bit of cash, got my hands on my first new camera (Canon F-1, plus a couple of lenses), and it was the last time I touched a rangefinder for a while.

...except for that black Canonet GIII I saw in a shop, with the proper lens hood...couldn't resist that. Then traded it away for my one and only Leica to date, a clean, Anniversary edition CL. Liked that a lot. Like a lot of good stuff that passed through my hands at the time (roughly 1982-1995), bite me if I can't figure out why I ditched it. (Maybe I was afraid I'd lose all control and get an M5. Pit that I didn't.)

All the above RFs were secondary to my SLRs, right ou to January 2002 when I made the big step of pulling a Stalin on my whole SLR kit and bought my first of two Hexar RFs. It was a only a few years after all that when I joined up here, where I found the most amazing bunch of smart, astute, and photographically-savvy people to annoy. 🙂

That's my excuse. Now, back to scanning and housework.


- Barrett

(P.S. I had eggs for brunch. Chicken comes later for dinner.)
 
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Rangefinder first (HexarRF), RFF after that.. I saw a post from JT on pnet somewhere in 2003 announcing RFF, lurked for a while and joined in december 2003..
 
I started poking around to find out more about my Dad's Voigtlander, then found cameraquest, then RFF, then bought a Canonet, and the rest is history...

So technically RFF came first since my Dad's Voigtlander is a scale focus camera.
 
Same time. I posted a photo here from my first roll of film through a Canonet that I had found at St. Vincent's the day before I joined RFF. Actually, I had tried my brother's Canonet about three years before that, but just put one roll of film though it I think.
 
Never been interested in photography until 1999. Been wandering aimlessly "photographically-speaking" with digital P&S' and a DSLR up to 2006.

A visit to a camera show led me to film-photography. RFF is next on the radar through online searches, and the rest is my-story 🙂
 
RF first than RFF. I got into RF's with an M6 beginning of the 90's because my T90 was too noisy for some concert and theater shots I was doing at that time. Still miss the multispot metering though 😉.
 
RF well before RFF... My first was a scale-focus Regula in the early 60's, then after a few years with SLRs my M2 came along used in the late 60's... followed some 15 years later by a Minolta CLE. I admit I've since favored the CLE for its inconspicuous looks and handy small size, as well as the AE.

The Regula is long gone, as is the Petri SLR that followed, and also the first few Pentaxes. But the M2 is still with me, along with nearly everything purchased over the past 35 years. I must say the purchases accelerated due to catching GAS from fellow RFF members! 😀
 
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