I shot my first roll of film, ever

I shot my first roll of film, ever

  • 30s or before

    Votes: 36 9.7%

  • 50s

    Votes: 10 2.7%

  • 50s

    Votes: 18 4.9%

  • 60s

    Votes: 52 14.1%

  • 70s

    Votes: 76 20.5%

  • 80s

    Votes: 90 24.3%

  • 90s

    Votes: 47 12.7%

  • 00s

    Votes: 41 11.1%
  • Total voters
    370
My Kodak 110 was the first camera I remember using. 12 shots to a roll and I needed flash cubes.

Congrats on your first film photos.

I think lenses from the 60s and 70s compete well with modern lenses in many instances. The improvements since then are at the margin:
  • Performance at f1.4 and wider. Lenses from the 60s can be softer at f1.2 or f1.4
  • Super wide angles are better and faster: 21mm f/6.3 was at the pinnacle of lens design back in the day. Leica has a 21mm f/1.4 now. Even Voigtlander has a 12mm, and its 21mm is f/4.
  • Zooms: early zoom lenses were dogs. Not applicable to us rangefinder folk.
 
My mother had a Kodak instamatic that I shot my first roll with. My first camera was a Yashica FR with ML 2/50 purchased in 1982. I bought it with paper route money. It was for a summer school photography class. I still have that combo and shoot it at least a few times per year. I actually did not like it at first because all the other kids had Pentax K1000's. It was not fun to be different then as a young teen. Fortunately I continued with that mount and started to buy Zeiss Contax lenses after highschool and ever since.
 
My first camera was a Kodak Brownie when I was 9 or 10. My next camera was an Argus C3 and then the Practiflex FX when I was 18. Those were wonderful days and many memories on film and just going around to find something to shoot.
 
If I remember correctly, my first roll of film would have been around 1974 ( I was six or seven ), I was likely shooting Kodacolor II in a Kodak Dual-flex IV (620)... I don't ever remember any pictures that weren't fuzzy.

From there, various relatives gave me their old Brownies and other relics as they unearthed them... one aunt gave me the Kodak Jiffy-616 folder that she had bought around 1932... a that time, I could stil l buy Kodacolor at local drugstore in: 120, 620, 116, 616, 828, as wel las 110, 126, and 35mm.

I felt like I was a "real adult" when I was about 10 years old, and my Dad let me use his Nikon S ( under his supervision). Dad shot either Kodachrome or Tri-X 400.

After that, I used a variety of Argus C-3 "bricks", until senior year of High-school, when I picked-up a Retina IIIc outfit from the father of a school-mate. That was my first "real camera" (Dad wasn't giving-up the Nikon!).... I shot many rolls of film through high=school and college with the Retina...

There was a period of about 10 years when I really didn't take many pictures, then in my mid-30's, I picked-up my first SLR: a Minolta XG-1 kit at a rummage sale.... it had the motor-drive, a wide range of lenses, filters, flashes, etc... so I figured I might as well learn how to use that.

That re-awakened my interest in photography, as well as my interest in old cameras...

Since then, I've had a serious case of GAS, and am shooting a LOT of film, during its twilight years.

I have to order some Kodachrome , and have a last blast with that during the fall and winter... I hope I can get my darkroom set-up and running before film goes away...

I think from the early 1960's on, most high-end RF cameras and SLRs still compare favorably with modern DSLRs, in terms of optical quality...

Lenses like Pentax's SMC (super-multi-coated) probably offered some of the biggest improvements.

Computers have helped improve lens design by virtue of being about to carry the mathematical calculations to a much finer degree than was possible in the days of the slide-rule...

These days, my user camera is an "ugly" Leica III from 1934, usually shooting an un-coated Elmar 35... I shoot anywhere from two to six rolls a week... mostly documentary stuff around work. I get respectable results from this 75-year-old camera... good enough that I'm in no hurry to go digital.

Regards,

Luddite Frank
 
I was born in '77. The first camera I remember being my very own was when I was 7, but by that time I'd already been taking the odd photo with some of my father's cameras. He wouldn't give me a camera until I knew enough to use it! (this was just an old point-and-shoot though, although new at the time, a fuji, can't quite remember the model, had a 38mm f/2.8 ebc lens on it though!)
-Brian
 
I shot my first roll years and years ago, still trying to get it right.

Nice shots so keep 'em coming.

Todd
 
My first roll would be in the late 40"s. Your poll has the 30's and then two "50's, so I can't quite answer in that form. My grandfather sent me money for a Baby Brownie Special, 127 film. I was probably about seven years old. I'm still using film (and digital). Dave
 
I voted 70s, but realized that 60s would be the truth; Kodak Instamatic. Tend to forget that. (So forgotten that not even the spelling control here recognizes it).
 
17 voters of 143 shot their first roll of film in the 1930's or earlier? RFF has quite a lot of old members...
 
My first camera (which I still have) was an Ilford Sporti - 120 roll film/12 exp. We used to shoot black & white because colour was too expensive!

I kept and used it till the 80s when I bought a Pentax Spotmatic. Then moved on to a couple of Minoltas (XD-7 and XG-M) before "going digital" then accidentally discovering RFs and from there it's been a slippery slope into FSUs, mostly.

I do have a couple or three digitals but nothing "serious" and I still prefer a film camera, be that an RF or the Minolta X-700.

I see most digitals as still a waste of money since they devalue and become obsolete so quickly and they are too complex, in most cases. Control is taken away unless you negotiate yards of menus and use fiddly buttons for basic functions (yes, I'm generalising). If you need them, fine but I don't since photography is only a hobby for me. I want to tell the camera what to do, not have it tell me or think for me.
 
wolves3012 said:
I see most digitals as still a waste of money since they devalue and become obsolete so quickly and they are too complex, in most cases.
Click to expand...

Agree, plus you're stuck with the same "film" for the life of the camera.

Control is taken away unless you negotiate yards of menus and use fiddly buttons for basic functions (yes, I'm generalising). ... I want to tell the camera what to do, not have it tell me or think for me.
Click to expand...

Again, agree. I find the tons of teeny-tiny buttons and confusing menus to be a hindrance.

Besides, don't most DSLR users simply use them as a huge honking P&S?
 
not sure it can be called a roll as it was one of those 110 Instamatic cameras. I have a few negatives still. Funny to see how tiny they are.
 
First film I shot, was some 100 ASA Ilford, I don't remember what type. Shot it with my first camera, a Zenit-E somewhere around '78.. I worked the school summer holidays to get the money together for the camera. The price of film, processing and printing was killing then; I remember taking forever to make a shot so as not to waste a single frame.
 
End of 80's, some point'n'shoot, but it was in the early '90's the first real photos, when my dad finally lend me the Oly 35 RC. Boy, a real camera, with manual focus, exposure, ecc. :D
 
In 1980 when I was 11 years old, my parent bought me a fuji pocket camera that used small format film (not 35mm film) that came in a cartridge, and it used a cube flash, which each cube could only be used for 4 shoots. Then in 1981 my father bought an SLR , a minolta xgm, I still have it today.

Anyway, I've been an amateur photographer for almost 30 years now, but I'm still a crappy shooter:eek:
 
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