What brought you to RFF?

i lurked and read on and off during 2004-5, then i joined. i liked the galleries, the very active responses to questions, and the welcoming tone of the members. also there was a financial incentive: the gandy discount to RFF members. presently i do most of my online photography reading through this site.
 
When I was 12 years old and had nothing whatsoever to do with photography, a friend of our neighbors paid them a visit. He had a Leica IIIc and a couple of lenses and I could hold it and make some photos. It was the day the name "Leica" was etched into my brain.

I got seriously engaged in photography when I was 18. My then girlfriend's (now my wife;)) father had a TLR and he developed and printed himself. I fell in love with his Rolleicord Va and got it, together with the Durst enlarger and other darkroom stuff, when he retired to a Canon Sure Shot 35AF. It's the one in my screenshow when you click my signature. On my 20th birthday my girlfriend gave me my first SLR, a Petrie V. After that five more SLRs (EF, A-1, EOS10, EOS D60, EOS 20D) followed, but I never forgot the feel of that Leica IIIc.

I'm an assoc prof in biochemistry and before the digital era university teachers and scientists made frequent use of the documentary departments that were connected to our labs. With the digis came Powerpoint and Photoshop and there was no need anymore for documentary photographers. The department was closed and the equipment had to go. That's how I got my two M4s, an MDa + Visoflex III and a couple of lenses, ... for free!

There was more, MF and technical cameras, lenses, enlargers and lighting equipment. Nobody else was interested and they promised the stuff to me. It took another half year before the old photography department's rooms were finally cleaned out. I happened to be on vacation and when I returned they had trashed everything. I still hate that ignorant facilities manager with his 3MB digi P&S that he used to shoot the progress of the clean out.

After the M4s I signed up here and that explains the IIIf, Contaxes, Canons and Nikon S2 ;), but the first RF I really paid for was an awesomely handsome 1949 IIIc - Elmar combo.

The recent surge in SLR threads here rekindled my lust for a nice black FTb QL and F-1 to go with the EF and A-1, and an Oly 1 or 2 intrigue me too....
 
I just came by here once to ask how much I should ask for my old man's Leica that I had no interest in. I thought it was broken as the shutter fired erratically in the slow speeds after 20 years of not being used. Now I have 3 M's, 4 LTM Leicas and 5 Canon RF's and I don't know how this happened or why.
 
Visited here straight after seeing the introductory mail from Jorge on pnet. Lurked for a couple of months before I finally registered.
 
My father owned it, I didn't know what's the difference between rf and other types like slr or tlr, the thing is it looked like a pro thing with all those manual controls. That I didn't know its use, we had it set at certain values, we didn't use it that much after my father.

When I found an interest for photography, it was always there, my mom said something was broken, and I gave it to a guy I met at a kodak lab, and he just didn't fix anything and got his money anyway, later when I did a cleaning job, I found out that the problem was with the shutter speed dial and it was fixed, anyway the rf came to me.

It was a fed 2. I kept digging for books and names and definitions, discovered I had something called range finder, i searched the internet for the fed, bit by bit I dicovered more. I was so entuthiastic, it was so much fun.
 
I visited a friend a few years back and saw his Canon A1, which he was still using. This reminded me that it used to be my dream camera. So I looked around on eBay. Unfortunately that reminded that *really* my dream camera used to be a Leica R4. So I bought an R7 too.

Then, while reading the Leica SLR lists, I'd keep coming across phrases like "of course, the *real* Leicas are the Ms". So one day, in a shop, I asked whether I could hold their M7.

I looked through the VF, pressed the shutter release and wound it on. I was hooked. And bought one the next day :(

Can't remember how exactly I found RFF then, but some link or other. May have been Karen Nakamura's site.

colin
 
back alley said:
iirc, i joined the day rff came online.
after a few days jorge asked me if i would be interested in being the moderator.
the rest is history...;)

joe
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I was here on day one after reading a HU from Francisco about the new forum, either at PN or PopPhoto, but I signed up on day 2.
 
oftheherd said:
Long time member and contributor SolaresLavarre used to be a contributor to the PopPhoto forums. In fact he started what I think was the longest thread there in praise of the Canonet. Shortly after he joined this site, he mentioned it there and gave the url. I came here and liked what I saw. Truely this is one of the better photography forums in general, and especialy for RF.

Thank you sir.
Click to expand...

Francisco was the fisherman who reeled in a lot of us early fish.
 
In my case, as with many others, I was looking for information (in my case on FSU RF's). This site kept cropping up, so I had a look around, popped back a few times and then joined.
Can't say I regret it.
 
For a long time we had Petri scale focusing compact camera at home and I was looking for information on Petri company. I've read something about it's history and was introduced to rangefinder cameras. I wanted to learn more, as I was looking for a good and reliable 35mm film camera with good viewfinder (after being dissapointed with Canon G7). With so many references in search engines I came to this site. I've seen galleries, browsed through threads and being immediately captured. And so I found beaten but reliable M3 and started shooting 35mm film. I'm happy :)
 
my first camera was the oly 35 RC . i had no idea it was called a rangefinder until someone a few years later got very excited about it and offered me 80 quid to buy it off me. as it was my first camera given to me by my dad when i was 14, i had no inclination to sell, of course. but then came digital and i ceased to take photos altogether until literally a couple of months ago, when a friend of mine told me he was lugging his dSLR around with him at all times to do street photography. i had a right go at him and told him he ought to get a good quality digital point and shoot for that, went onto amazon to check out some models and prices to suggest. when i saw how cheap these digi p&s cameras now are i thought, hang on, i wonder what RFs cost these days. two weeks later i had bought the yashica and stumbled across this forum. back out their boxes came my oly and my FM2n and i am so glad to have rediscovered an old passion!

i've been at RFF pretty much every day since joining. it is by far and away the nicest, chattiest and most informative forum i've ever been to.
 
Google brought me here. The wealth of information in the gallery lured me; then all of that disappeared over a year ago during one of the "upgrades", and unfortunately not many people care for maintaining the gear data in their gallery photos.
 
MY Dad had a Fuji MF rangefinder, which I borrowed, quite liked, but wanted more control.(It was an AF model) I am a longtime subscriber to the UK magazine Black and White Photography, (one of the only camera mags that doesnt treat you like an idiot) and saw the review of the CV Bessa R2M and 3M, having been a fan of Cartier Bresson, decided to take the plunge into RF. In a way, I suppose I wanted to try and see the way he saw.
Also, in my daily job I use Digital AFs (Mainly D80's) Which I love, but in my own time, I want total control, something slower and a way to hone my skills.
I am still quite new to RF photography, but so far, I have really enjoyed the whole process, and I feel it has also improved my digital skills too.
 
Hi, I bouht a Fed 2 off the auction site and had to ask about what I had done.Everyone was so eager to help and give advice that I never left.Still that way.Many thanks to Ian (Jocko) a really big help............Robin
 
The "Leica" lens on my Panasonic DMC-LC5 made me research the Leica brand. I learned that virtually every camera between 1930 and the modern full automatic plastic fantastic cameras was influenced by the Leica I, II and III. I also learned that the Leica II and III were copied by various brands in various countries; that some of these copies were mass produced in the FSU and that you could buy these mechanical marvels for next to nothing on Ebay. It was a Fed 2 that brought me here...
 
My dad bought me a Yashica J for my 12th birthday then, some years later, I blundered onto RFF on the interweb thing
:)
 
The M8 hype got me interested in RFs, which of course led me to this site. I actually had no idea what a rangefinder was before the M8. When I saw pics of the M8, I thought the frameline window was actually the built in flash! The strange thing is, I still don't own a rangfinder, but maybe I will someday.
 
I was looking at peoples views on the Bessa R/R2 etc and ended up here a couple of years ago. I really enjoy using RFs, In fact with the restricted lenses on offer compared to an SLR (no zooms or lenses over 135) I am a lot better at picking the right lens for the right shot being able to visualise the frame before taking the camera out of the bag.
 
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