What was your first SLR?

Praktica MTL 3. 50mm f1.8, and Vivitar 2x MC Tele Converter. Simple camera, but never put a foot wrong. Unfortunately I managed to crack the lens in two, and it fell out of use. Now where have I put it?
 
Mamiya Sekor 1000 DTL bought at the PX at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C. in 1972. The meter on it died so I didn't use it for very long. But I was able to use it to take a picture of someone diving off the diving board at the pool at Ft. McNair using Tri-X. Thanks to the fast shutter speed of the Mamiya Sekor, the image was extremely sharp. I was very impressed.

My very first camera was a Kodak Brownie Holiday. I remember developing a roll of B&W film in the powder room of my parents house and making contact prints when I was about 9 years old. Even then I was hooked on photography! Back then , I used only B&W film because color cost an arm and a leg compared to B&W. Things have sure changed since then!

Ellen
 
A Practina FX with a spring wind motor attached. Shot the first pix I had published in Sports Illustrated with it... sequence set of young Ricardo Rodriquez flipping his Porsche RSK at Meadowdale (WI) International Raceway in (about) 1958.

This was followed by a monster Hassy 1000 - Klank!
 
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My first real camera (back around mid '70's) was a black Canon FT (precursor to the F-1 and FTb) It was built like a tank. I bought it used with a 55mm 1.2 lens, what a hunk of glass.!!

Paul
 
My first SLR was this Yashica FX-3 bought in 1979. I still have it and use it though it probably would benefit from some new foam to go with the new leatherette it got this year.

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Ronnie
 
Inherited Zenit somethingorother. Enjoyed shredding film edges, so it got replaced with a bottom-of-the-barrel T50 and a 50 1.8. That got submerged and replaced by an equally bottom-of-the-barrel Rebel G and plastic kit lens. Second year of photo college I turned the heat WAY down at my apartment and enjoyed an EOS 1N with the power grip. What a monster. Then it was a brief fling with Hasselblad (still have dreams about it, will replace it someday). The 1N and Hassy got sold and (sort of) replaced with a 10d, which now backs up my 5d.
 
Minolta X-300s fitted with a MD 50/2. When the capacitor bug occured, I took my father's Sr-T 101 b and since then I stick to Sr-Ts... I just bought my fifth examplar today.
 
Olympus OM-10 with manual adapter and 50/1.8--a gift from my wife. I used it extensively and exclusively for over twenty years without a single failure. I still have it, but it spends most of the time on the shelf while its single-digit siblings are out having fun.
 
A Pentax K1000 given to me by my father with a 58mm f2 i think. After a dozen rolls on which i ruined most photos by not pressing the film rewind button and was guesstimating due to a broken light meter in the camera and a crappy external one, my father borrowed me his Nikon Nikkormat with a 55mm f3.5 micro when i took a photo class in high school.

And to think that Nikkormat led to so many lens and bodies, makes me smile!
 
Praktica Super TL. I bought it secondhand in 1978, when I was 11 years old. It's long gone, and I don't miss it... Half a year later I bought a Minolta SR-7. That was a nice camera.
 
My Pentax K1000 w/50mm. One of the good ones before they started sticking plastic all over them. I still use it on a regular basis.
 
Mine was a Nikon FM2n with a 50mm - 135mm f3.5 zoom lens, bought in 1985. I saved for five months to buy them, figuring the cost of both to the penny including sales tax. They each cost roughly $250.00 at the time, with the black version of the FM2 costing slightly more than the chrome one. I sold the lens some time ago, realizing that zooms were not to my liking. I still have and still shoot with the body, however. The shutter needed replacing one and I had the foam replaced about three years ago, but it remains a fine performer.
 
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