Which camera made you fall in love with photography?

Minolta X-700, late 90s. I'd gone to Germany to coach a professional basketball team, so I figured I'd buy a nice camera and take some snapshots while I was there. Got the camera with a 50mm/f1.4 lens, and later a 28/2.8 and a 135/3.5. And that was back in the days where you could buy all kinds of different E-6 film everywhere, cheaply, and have it processed and back to you within a couple of days. Shooting photos took my mind off some of the stresses of trying to figure out how to win games with young guys who probably shouldn't have been playing at the level we had advanced to, and looking at the slides (and soon, the B&W negatives) was just really encouraging. It all took off from there.

The Fuji FinePix 4700 I bought 25 years ago in 2000.

If digital cameras hadn't been invented, I wouldn't have become a photographer. This 2.5MP camera that consumed AA batteries like candy led to a lifelong interest culminating in an MA Photography degree (tutored by Magnum photographer Mark Power), exhibiting in galleries, and being invited to become a member of the MAP6 photo collective.

I started out with a Boots (UK high street chemists chain) 126 camera, with a fragile wind mech - I had a string replaced under warrantly, but I still have the last which must have been about the 10th.

Then a Halina Paulette Electric, replaced with an Olympus OM10 when the wind on that went mammaries skywards.

Then, about 2003, it took a very odd turn. I was chatting to the new in the photo section at work, he mentioned that the 120 film he'd found a huge stock of in the freezer would fit his old cameras... and I remembered the box camera I'd picked up from a Scout jumble sale in the 1980s.

I unearthed that, put a roll of 120 through it, developed myself and did some prints - and I was hooked! That started me on the slippery slope of accumulating box cameras. Still a rubbish photographer, but I have a shedload of box cameras!

Here it is, on the left, with a couple of other Coronets - the cheapest of the cheap!

An F much like this one.....until i succumbed to a used Leica M2 in the window of the Leica shop i had to pass by each day on the way to university....