Guth
Appreciative User
I realize that most people these days will only ever experience photography via a smartphone of some sort and camera upgrades typically come along with the purchase of newer smartphones. Given my age, I can't help but think of how different things were as recently as just a few decades ago. Back in 1971 I received a Kodak Instamatic as a gift for my 9th birthday. While my interest in photography was spurred on by that little Instamatic, I eventually became painfully aware of its limitations. In my case this largely had to do with my desire to capture action. Thus I decided buy a 35mm SLR, giving me control of shutter speeds in particular along with access to a variety of lenses. Over time my subject matter interests changed as did the gear that I used. But gaining the ability to better capture action was what got it all started for me. So what about you?
Outside of San Antonio, Texas, shot with a Kodak X15 Instamatic, 1976
Outside of Buchanan, Michigan, shot with a Minolta XD11, 1979 (image cropped for Instagram posting)
NOTE TO MODERATORS: I did attempt a search to see if such a topic had already been covered in a previous thread and came up with nothing. If such a thread does exist, please feel free to add my post to that thread.
Outside of San Antonio, Texas, shot with a Kodak X15 Instamatic, 1976
Outside of Buchanan, Michigan, shot with a Minolta XD11, 1979 (image cropped for Instagram posting)
NOTE TO MODERATORS: I did attempt a search to see if such a topic had already been covered in a previous thread and came up with nothing. If such a thread does exist, please feel free to add my post to that thread.
pvdhaar
Peter
I bought an SLR from my first pay because I thought it looked like a proper camera. Had absolutely no idea about exposure, aperture, shutterspeed and what not. It just looked cool..
Guth
Appreciative User
Nice! Did you never experience the need or the desire to switch to another camera after that?
johnf04
Well-known
My reasons were similar to yours, Guth - I started with an Agfa Isomat Rapid, but after a few months, I decided an SLR would be more suitable. I gave the Agfa to my girlfriend, and bought a Zenit 3m.
pvdhaar
Peter
Yes, but only some 20 years later.. when I saw how easy a Konica Hexar AF was to work with.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
My dad gave me a 35mm SLR, an Olympus OM-G, when I was 11 years old. When I was 16, I was in a car accident and the camera was broken. Replaced it with an Olympus OM-4T, and later added a Mamiya 645 Super since I was planning to go to art school and become a professional photographer.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
My mother had an Instamatic, and I grew up using it and flash cubes until late in high school she bought herself a Canon AE-1 with a 50/1.8. I got to Germany in the Army in 1983 and got myself an AE-1 Program (with the same 50/1.8 
) from the PX. After I got out of the Army it "grew legs". I eventually replaced it with a Rebel XS and the kit zoom. That was a truly hideous lens, though I honestly didn't realize just how bad till my Ex and I went to Vietnam to adopt our son. Looking at the pictures from that trip in 2002 made me start looking for better cameras. I found things like a Yashicamat 124 and a Yashica Electro 35 GS at a flea market. That lead me here. The rest of the expensive story is history...
Now I have a nice Leica M 240 kit, a decent sized Nikon kit centered around a D810 & am considering getting a older Pentax K-5 as a plaything ...
) from the PX. After I got out of the Army it "grew legs". I eventually replaced it with a Rebel XS and the kit zoom. That was a truly hideous lens, though I honestly didn't realize just how bad till my Ex and I went to Vietnam to adopt our son. Looking at the pictures from that trip in 2002 made me start looking for better cameras. I found things like a Yashicamat 124 and a Yashica Electro 35 GS at a flea market. That lead me here. The rest of the expensive story is history... Now I have a nice Leica M 240 kit, a decent sized Nikon kit centered around a D810 & am considering getting a older Pentax K-5 as a plaything ...
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
My Dad bought me a Polaroid Land 420. From there, I moved to 35mm with a Miranda Sensorex since 35mm was the thing back then - according to the photo magazines...
Erik van Straten
Veteran
Great subject for a thread!
I got a 6x9cm box camera when I was 4 years old. There was a film in the camera, but that was never developed. The only other thing I did with the camera was to demolish it.
When I was about twelve years old I got an Ilford Sportsman 300, a 35mm viewfinder camera. The film that was in this camera was also never developed. However, I already understood then that to take good pictures you need a good camera, not a toy.
My mother occasionally photographed with a Hacoflex, a Japanese 6x6 two-eye reflex camera, a kind of Rolleicord, but less well. The films that were exposed with this were developed by the local chemist. However, the negatives turned out to be full of black spots. It was a mystery how they came to be. Later I discovered that the camera was leaking light.
When I was fourteen, I did a summer job. For the money I earned I bought a second-hand Yashica Mat. That was a good one. I learned photography with that camera.
Erik.
I got a 6x9cm box camera when I was 4 years old. There was a film in the camera, but that was never developed. The only other thing I did with the camera was to demolish it.
When I was about twelve years old I got an Ilford Sportsman 300, a 35mm viewfinder camera. The film that was in this camera was also never developed. However, I already understood then that to take good pictures you need a good camera, not a toy.
My mother occasionally photographed with a Hacoflex, a Japanese 6x6 two-eye reflex camera, a kind of Rolleicord, but less well. The films that were exposed with this were developed by the local chemist. However, the negatives turned out to be full of black spots. It was a mystery how they came to be. Later I discovered that the camera was leaking light.
When I was fourteen, I did a summer job. For the money I earned I bought a second-hand Yashica Mat. That was a good one. I learned photography with that camera.
Erik.
neal3k
Well-known
That is a great question and, possibly because I am 78, I don't know the answer. I had used a box camera for a couple of years and must have realized there was something better. With no camera stores in my small town, I found a camera I could afford in the Sears catalog with my paper route savings, a Tower 57-A, I do remember stopping action on my school field day on my first outing and still wish I had the shot of a pole vaulter in the air. But not knowing any photographers or seeing any complex cameras, I can't imagine what possessed me. I was about 14 or 15 at the time.
Sears Tower 57A by Neal Wellons, on Flickr
Sears Tower 57A by Neal Wellons, on FlickrTom R
Established
I was the oldest of three children. I had the job of recording 8mm movies, family snapshots on whatever equipment was on-hand. I never thought much about any of this until reading this topic. Long story short, I continued my interest in photography throughout high-school, working in the school darkroom, and always had at least one 35mm camera available throughout college.
Didn't have much time for "serious" photography, however, until some time after finishing graduate school. I had a job that required that I occasionally take photographs of political events, etc. At that time, I used Nikon Fs which I purchased from a "to the trade only" seller--E. Phil Levine, in Boston, MA. Phil was more than a salesman, he was genuinely interested in what I wanted to do with photography. So, one day he suggested that he lend me a Leica M3 with a 50mm Summicron lens, and that I shoot a few dozen rolls with it and "get back to him." Well, I had to keep the Nikons for practical reasons--longer focal lengths, motor-drives, when needed, etc. But, when not working, I really liked the Leica--a lot.
Eventually, I left that job to do other things. I sold the Nikons, purchased a Leica M3, and very soon thereafter an M2 with a 35mm Summicron as this combination worked for the kinds of pictures I found myself making. I've made some additional purchases over the last thirty-plus years; now I use an M4 and two M4-Ps with 28 - 90mm lenses.
Didn't have much time for "serious" photography, however, until some time after finishing graduate school. I had a job that required that I occasionally take photographs of political events, etc. At that time, I used Nikon Fs which I purchased from a "to the trade only" seller--E. Phil Levine, in Boston, MA. Phil was more than a salesman, he was genuinely interested in what I wanted to do with photography. So, one day he suggested that he lend me a Leica M3 with a 50mm Summicron lens, and that I shoot a few dozen rolls with it and "get back to him." Well, I had to keep the Nikons for practical reasons--longer focal lengths, motor-drives, when needed, etc. But, when not working, I really liked the Leica--a lot.
Eventually, I left that job to do other things. I sold the Nikons, purchased a Leica M3, and very soon thereafter an M2 with a 35mm Summicron as this combination worked for the kinds of pictures I found myself making. I've made some additional purchases over the last thirty-plus years; now I use an M4 and two M4-Ps with 28 - 90mm lenses.
Yokosuka Mike
Abstract Clarity
1976 - My first real camera was a Minalta rangefinder of some sort. It belonged to my first wife. The camera had been dropped many times, couldn’t screw in a filter, but it did take pictures. A guy I worked with knew all about photography, he was younger than me and less serious about work; probably too smart for his own good. Anyway, he got me started with that dented Minolta but not long after that with the help of a tax return I bought a Konica T3. It was a kit camera, and in those days a “kit” was not a bad thing. It included 3 lenses; maybe a 28mm, a 50mm and a 100mm hexanon lens. The first time I looked through the viewfinder with the 50m lens on the camera I thought… holy $hit! this is amazing! I’ve been taking pictures ever since.
All the best,
Mike
All the best,
Mike
Benjamin Marks
Veteran
When I was in my late teens/early 20's, I was using a couple of Pentax K1000s, with the lenses I could afford at the time. Those were the days of peering through the back pages of Shutterbug to find a gem in the used equipment ads, or sneaking down to the photo district to look at the rows upon rows of used gear at the brick-and-morter shops that proliferated in NYC's downtown in the pre-internet days (Lens & Reprographics! Adorama and B&H at their old locations! Olden, Willoughby's and tens of other mom-and-pop size stores, each with its own odd-ball collection of working gear!). But, I was leaving the US to live in another country and wanted to "upgrade" so traded in the K1000's my father's old Praktika and a novelty spycam of my grandfather's (and all of my cash) and I bought a new Pentax LX. The thing that pushed me over the edge on that extravagant purchase was the LX's light metering, and the electronically controlled shutter, which I thought was going to make my photography better. Turns out that a third of a stop plus or minus wasn't that big a deal with the way I was processing film at the time, but I didn't know that until I had tried the LX out for a while. I did like the auto-exposure mode though, and I did use the LX sometimes with with an auxilliary waist level finder in the street, which was a novelty to me. The LX was a great fit for the kind of photography that I was doing . . .
but I was lured by the promise/premise of autofocus. So in the early 1990's I traded my entire Pentax kit, including all the lenses, for a Nikon F4s at Olden Camera in NYC, and for a single lens: the 50 /1.4. This too was an upgrade, as the autofocus features and autometering meant that I was routinely getting shots that I had been "missing" (mostly due to my own lack of skill) with the LX. I know that the F4 gets a bad rap these days, but I frickin' loved the thing. I still have it, sitting on a shelf, top-LCD bleeds and all. Never had it serviced, and it never, ever hiccuped in operation. When I look through my contact sheets in the 1990's and compare them to those from the 1980's they are distinguished by the images spot-on metering and the quality of the focus. I don't want to say that the Nikon lenses were necessarily sharper than their Pentax counterparts (Que: FLAMEWAR!!! - Ready? Fight!), but I appreciated that each Nikon focal length had a fast version of the lens out there, while Pentax was mostly stuck at f:2.8 in my most-used focal length. [Pentax fanboys: don't despair. I have, over the years, re-purchased all of the Pentax primes I had, and then some . . . at pennies on the dollar. The MF-A lenses can be had for a song, compared to their new prices, but that's another story]. My use of the F4 gave way to a Canon digi-rebel with its tiny viewfinder, and then a Canon 5D, with its gorgeous, (if maddening for MF) focusing screen. Were these upgrades? Well, yes in the sense that I saved a lot of time on scanning and spotting negatives. But no, not in the sense that the images were more technically capable out of the Canons than out of the Nikons.
And then came the Nikon D3, which ushered the Canons out the door and allowed me for the first time no-compromise digital with all my existing Nikon lenses. Now THAT was an upgrade. On a price-per-image-shot basis, I think that has been the least expensive camera. The thing is still clicking away, although I use it less now that I have a higher resolution Pentax K-1 (for use with all those tasty Pentax primes). See, one of the things that has changed since the introduction of practical, popular, digital in the early 2000's is high ISO performance. So it really no longer matters that my Pentax 100mm lens maxes out at f:2.8. My attitude now is that I choose really fast lenses for subject isolation, but with ISO 1600 rending (for me, at the print sizes I make) essentially the same dynamic range as ISO 200, an f:2.8 lens can be used for its optical quality only.
The current siren, pulling me towards the rocky shoals? Why the Nikon Z9, of course. But the stratospheric price has held me back. I have crossed over the "hump" of my earning years when spending more than a month's salary on a single piece of photo gear is not a practical option. Oh, I could probably eBay all the gear sitting unused on the shelf these days and make it happen. But that would mean saying goodbye to the M2, M5, R4s, Speedgraphic, Wisner, Rolleis, Hassies etc. etc., and those toys are just too much fun to jettison so casually. Oddly, the Z9 would only be a marginal upgrade in terms of image quality over the Pentax K-1 (real, but small). So I have held off.
Truthfully, for the stuff I like to do, the Nikon D3 was good enough. And the very real advances in imaging chip performance have only yielded me marginal improvements in my work since then. I still feel the tug, though . . .
but I was lured by the promise/premise of autofocus. So in the early 1990's I traded my entire Pentax kit, including all the lenses, for a Nikon F4s at Olden Camera in NYC, and for a single lens: the 50 /1.4. This too was an upgrade, as the autofocus features and autometering meant that I was routinely getting shots that I had been "missing" (mostly due to my own lack of skill) with the LX. I know that the F4 gets a bad rap these days, but I frickin' loved the thing. I still have it, sitting on a shelf, top-LCD bleeds and all. Never had it serviced, and it never, ever hiccuped in operation. When I look through my contact sheets in the 1990's and compare them to those from the 1980's they are distinguished by the images spot-on metering and the quality of the focus. I don't want to say that the Nikon lenses were necessarily sharper than their Pentax counterparts (Que: FLAMEWAR!!! - Ready? Fight!), but I appreciated that each Nikon focal length had a fast version of the lens out there, while Pentax was mostly stuck at f:2.8 in my most-used focal length. [Pentax fanboys: don't despair. I have, over the years, re-purchased all of the Pentax primes I had, and then some . . . at pennies on the dollar. The MF-A lenses can be had for a song, compared to their new prices, but that's another story]. My use of the F4 gave way to a Canon digi-rebel with its tiny viewfinder, and then a Canon 5D, with its gorgeous, (if maddening for MF) focusing screen. Were these upgrades? Well, yes in the sense that I saved a lot of time on scanning and spotting negatives. But no, not in the sense that the images were more technically capable out of the Canons than out of the Nikons.
And then came the Nikon D3, which ushered the Canons out the door and allowed me for the first time no-compromise digital with all my existing Nikon lenses. Now THAT was an upgrade. On a price-per-image-shot basis, I think that has been the least expensive camera. The thing is still clicking away, although I use it less now that I have a higher resolution Pentax K-1 (for use with all those tasty Pentax primes). See, one of the things that has changed since the introduction of practical, popular, digital in the early 2000's is high ISO performance. So it really no longer matters that my Pentax 100mm lens maxes out at f:2.8. My attitude now is that I choose really fast lenses for subject isolation, but with ISO 1600 rending (for me, at the print sizes I make) essentially the same dynamic range as ISO 200, an f:2.8 lens can be used for its optical quality only.
The current siren, pulling me towards the rocky shoals? Why the Nikon Z9, of course. But the stratospheric price has held me back. I have crossed over the "hump" of my earning years when spending more than a month's salary on a single piece of photo gear is not a practical option. Oh, I could probably eBay all the gear sitting unused on the shelf these days and make it happen. But that would mean saying goodbye to the M2, M5, R4s, Speedgraphic, Wisner, Rolleis, Hassies etc. etc., and those toys are just too much fun to jettison so casually. Oddly, the Z9 would only be a marginal upgrade in terms of image quality over the Pentax K-1 (real, but small). So I have held off.
Truthfully, for the stuff I like to do, the Nikon D3 was good enough. And the very real advances in imaging chip performance have only yielded me marginal improvements in my work since then. I still feel the tug, though . . .
Dogman
Veteran
When I first became interested in photography I bought what I could afford. It was a Mamiya/Sekor 35mm SLR with 50/2 lens. It was the lowest priced 35mm SLR in the store. As I gained experience and knowledge, I knew I wanted a Nikon. Nikons were "professional" and had a reputation of durability and reliability in the extreme. Eventually one of my friends decided to sell his nearly new Nikon FTn with 50/1.4 Nikkor lens and I bought it. It was a good move. After more than 50 years I've used several other brands. But I'm back with Nikon as my main camera. I don't have the need for extreme reliability anymore but Nikon DSLRs fit me well. And, of course, I still prefer the pro and semi-pro models.
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zane0777
Established
In my 20s and 30s I used a Canon 35mm point-n-shoot. It did the job with minimum fuss and the image quality from the 38mm prime lens was really very good. After a decade of that, I decided to treat myself to a new camera, a weatherproof Olympus Stylus Epic. After several rolls with that, each with several frames annoyingly mis-focused, I dove into the technology side of photography to understand why it was happening. After that deep dive I ended up with several Pentax film and digital SLRs, and ten years ago added Olympus m4/3. Also pushing me toward more capable cameras was the project I gave myself scanning all of the old family photos. I saw the timeless value of high quality images and decided to put the effort into improving my skills and knowledge.
lynnb
Veteran
I learnt on my parents' Box Brownie and then Yashica Lynx 1000. When I was 11 or 12 I bought my first camera with money saved from an after school job - an Instamatic 126. When I was finishing high school I wanted a high quality interchangeable lens camera. I liked the idea of SLRs because you could see what the lens saw in the viewfinder and also see the DOF. I had joined a local camera club where all the members were about as old as my parents and pretty much everyone used Pentax Spotmatics. But then Olympus released the new OM1 and I couldn't resist its wonderful viewfinder, bayonet lens mount and compact size. That was my first serious camera at age 18, with standard 50mm f/1.8 lens. Later on I bought the 28mm f/3.5 and 200mm f/4, and got hooked on Tri-X and Kodachrome 25.
x-ray
Veteran
When I was 5 years old in 1953 my mom started letting me shoot with her Ansco 620 box camera. I became so interested in making photos my parents gave me a Kodak Star Flask kit. That only fed my desire to make images of my friends so I would take it to school and photograph friends and teachers and whatever was happening at school and around the neighborhood.
It wasn’t long till I needed something better. Around 1961 I shot my first pay job of one of my teachers sons who was a musician and needed some PR photos. My dad has a Rolleicord and allowed me to use it for that job. I think I made $5 for the shoot.
When I got to high school I shot for the school paper and started shooting photos of bands my friends had formed and earned pretty good money doing these images. My dad was kind enough to let me use his Rollei and 4x5 Crown Graphic which he gave to me.
In my senior year I had saved a good bit of money from selling my photos and with my dads help I bought a newly introduced Minolta SRT101 with the 50mm f1.4.
When I got to college in 1967 I landed a job as a photojournalist and quickly started adding Leica and Nikon F gear until I had 3 M bodies, 7 lenses, visoflex and bellows and a Nikon F and lens. I also started doing commercial photography and added a new 4x5 Sinar Norma and a beautiful 5x7 Deardorff and lenses.
As my career grew so did my camera systems depending on the need.
It wasn’t long till I needed something better. Around 1961 I shot my first pay job of one of my teachers sons who was a musician and needed some PR photos. My dad has a Rolleicord and allowed me to use it for that job. I think I made $5 for the shoot.
When I got to high school I shot for the school paper and started shooting photos of bands my friends had formed and earned pretty good money doing these images. My dad was kind enough to let me use his Rollei and 4x5 Crown Graphic which he gave to me.
In my senior year I had saved a good bit of money from selling my photos and with my dads help I bought a newly introduced Minolta SRT101 with the 50mm f1.4.
When I got to college in 1967 I landed a job as a photojournalist and quickly started adding Leica and Nikon F gear until I had 3 M bodies, 7 lenses, visoflex and bellows and a Nikon F and lens. I also started doing commercial photography and added a new 4x5 Sinar Norma and a beautiful 5x7 Deardorff and lenses.
As my career grew so did my camera systems depending on the need.
ChrisPlatt
Thread Killer
My first 35mm SLR was a Canon AE-1. When the Canon A-1 came out I saved to buy one.
I thought I needed a "hexaphotocybernetic" camera, whatever that is. Boy, was I wrong.
I hated it and sold it ASAP. I chucked the Canons and got a manual exposure Nikon.
Chris
I thought I needed a "hexaphotocybernetic" camera, whatever that is. Boy, was I wrong.
I hated it and sold it ASAP. I chucked the Canons and got a manual exposure Nikon.
Chris
hilltime
Well-known
After barely using the plethora of Kodak Instamatics, 126 and 110 when I was a kid, I got to use my Mom's new Polaroid SX-70 in the 60's, but the film was so expensive(?), it was limited. Never really had a interest in photography in HS and college, but when I was 27, I got a hand me down Praktica with a broken 50/1.8 Pancolar, so my only lens was a Hanimex 135. Had to try and learn composition using a Tele which got to be pretty difficult. Finally, started working in a 1-HR photo shop part time and got the bug big time. An 18yr old fellow coworker, said if you're going to buy a camera, buy a Nikon FM. After researching and saving for sometime ended up buying a black FM2, (which I still have). It became my most trusted friend and photography became a real passion. Eventually got a 55/2.8 Micro and a Tamron 70-210 Zoom which opened many new worlds.
Caught the camera collectible sickness about 10yrs later and now look back on 3 closets full of equipment.... but the Nikon is still my baby!
Caught the camera collectible sickness about 10yrs later and now look back on 3 closets full of equipment.... but the Nikon is still my baby!
Tim Murphy
Well-known
Dear Board,
I got started with Kodak Instamatics and a Polaroid Square Shooter that I won selling newspaper subscriptions. When I was about 16, I received a Canonet 28 and Canolite D as a Christmas present, and I used them often.
After my freshman year of college, I bought a Canon F-1 from a neighbor along with a Vivitar 135mm f2.8 lens. It was my only camera and lens for a long time until I got out of the Air Force. I traded it in on a used Canon A-1, but I just never got used to the A-1 and I sold it and gave up photography for quite a while.
In the early 1990's I bought a Canon EOS Elan, a Canon 28-80 USM, and a Canon 70-300 USM kit from a long-gone camera store that advertised in Modern Photography and Popular Photography magazines. I used the camera a lot including for work photographing used construction equipment that was being traded in, but eventually the dealership where I worked computerized and needed digital pictures. They provided me with an Olympus C-2000Z digital with a whopping 2.1 megapixels. And my Elan returned to weekend and vacation use.
As film lost favor so did my interest in photography. But in 2005 a friend bought a new Panasonic LX-1 digital P&S, and he gave me his old Olympus C-2040Z. Once again, I was interested in photography. I have been buying and selling secondhand cameras like crazy ever since. I still use the C-2040Z once or twice a year though, and I'll always be grateful to my buddy for his generous gift.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg PA
I got started with Kodak Instamatics and a Polaroid Square Shooter that I won selling newspaper subscriptions. When I was about 16, I received a Canonet 28 and Canolite D as a Christmas present, and I used them often.
After my freshman year of college, I bought a Canon F-1 from a neighbor along with a Vivitar 135mm f2.8 lens. It was my only camera and lens for a long time until I got out of the Air Force. I traded it in on a used Canon A-1, but I just never got used to the A-1 and I sold it and gave up photography for quite a while.
In the early 1990's I bought a Canon EOS Elan, a Canon 28-80 USM, and a Canon 70-300 USM kit from a long-gone camera store that advertised in Modern Photography and Popular Photography magazines. I used the camera a lot including for work photographing used construction equipment that was being traded in, but eventually the dealership where I worked computerized and needed digital pictures. They provided me with an Olympus C-2000Z digital with a whopping 2.1 megapixels. And my Elan returned to weekend and vacation use.
As film lost favor so did my interest in photography. But in 2005 a friend bought a new Panasonic LX-1 digital P&S, and he gave me his old Olympus C-2040Z. Once again, I was interested in photography. I have been buying and selling secondhand cameras like crazy ever since. I still use the C-2040Z once or twice a year though, and I'll always be grateful to my buddy for his generous gift.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg PA