What was your first SLR?

Early 70s..

Early 70s..

New Topcon Unirex.... ordered mail order from Hong Kong. That was a big deal, send what seemed at the time a lot of money across the ocean for my first serious camera. I did my homework and was impressed that the Topcon company had a contract with the US Navy to supply Topcon Super D cameras. I dearly wanted a super D, but the money was too much. So I bought the Unirex. Nice solid camera, shutter speed ring on the body like the Olympus OM1. Great lenses. Used it for a few years. It's in the camera cabinet.
 
My first was a camera that my parents bought for me...It was a Vivitar 400/SL, black body and came with a 50mm 1.9 and a 200mm 3.5 (?)...I still have it and it still works but I don't use it...
Now, the first camera I bought was a Pentax MX (actually bought two) I still have them both...Black Bodies...
 
Pentax ME Super that my brother-in-law gave me a couple of years ago. Unfortunately came out of storage with a stuck mirror, still haven't been able to use it.

Picked up a $20 Pentax MG so I would at least be using bro-in-law's lenses. It consistently underexposes.

Sears KS-2 (Ricoh XR-7) with the same intent. Worked through a Grand Canyon trip, at least, before it decided to freeze its mirror.

Konica FP-1 that I picked up from the "Free" pile at a local yard sale last year. Auto-everything piece of junk with a fine lens. Needless to say, this one works flawlessly.

Let's face it, SLRs hate me. Which is mutual.
 
After buying my first serious medium format camera (Rolleicord Vb), I bought a Canon AE-1P with a 50/1.8. That was eleven years ago. I have had another chrome and one black AE-1P since. Now, in hindsight, I can't figure why I had to buy the same camera thrice. All with a 50, too. 🙂
 
My first SLR was a Minolta SRT-101 with the Rokkor 50/1.7. I also had a Vivatar 28/? and 200/? (T4 mounts). I had a highspeed encounter with the pavement while cruising through South Carolina on my motorcycle. The Minolta was caught between the bike and the road. About half of the front lens element was ground away, but the body was undamaged.
 
My first SLR was a DSLR, and that's actually kind of embarrassing. Guess I'm showing my age with this. It was an eos 450d. Crappy little camera. My first real SLR was a Canon AV1
 
Praktica in the early seventies (second hand, affordable on an newspaperdelivery-budget). Still works, but it's heavy and noisy. Bought a Minolta 7000 around 1990, never liked it - too slow. Nowadays for diary type photography Bessa R3a, and R2 ( seldom used). Sometimes Olympus OM-40, great. However, because of image quality mostly medium format (TLR).
 
My first SLR was a Minolta SR-1 bought second-hand in 1965. I had no light meter for a couple of years. The first rolls were developed i the handbasin in the bathroom. I had no money at all but a lot of enthusiasm. The picture is of my girlfriend, later my wife. We were barely 19. It was taken in may 1966 with a newly purchased Auto-Rokkor 100/3.5 which I used for twenty years and loved dearly. The wonderful light is the late evening sun.
The latest couple of years I have digitized more than 4000 of my old negatives for the family archive. Looking at your own life story almost make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Stickan
 

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Still using my Canon A-1 my parents gave me in 1982. I am currently thinking about buying a portrait lens for it. FD lenses got quite cheap in the meantime.
Greg

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My first SLR was also my first camera and it was a Minolta 110 Mark II. Not having used anything else, I had no complaints about the results I got from the 110 format. In hindsight, I think the layout of the camera, its durability (which was thoroughly tested, believe me 🙂) and the cartridge design were all perfect for a kid. The cartridge design, in particular, was very resistant to the clumsy and forgetful nature of children. If you (or someone else) opened the back mid-roll and the cart fell out, you'd only ruin one frame, not the entire portion on the take-up spool. If someone opened the back and the cart didn't come out, you wouldn't fog that frame. Ingenious! I later found out that William White, who wrote the Book on Subminiature Photography, considers the lens on the Mark II to be one of the top ten performers in submini history.

The first full-size SLR that I used was a Canon AE-1 that belonged to my high school newspaper. It was the only staff camera so needless to say I soon went on a quest to find my own. The first 35mm SLR that I bought was an F4s that I later converted to the F4e with the MB-23 grip. What a beast of a camera. I used it for many years until it was stolen from my home in 2002. I was a bit bored with AF and the Contax RTS line had always caught my eye so I settled on a barely-used RTS III, a new 28/2.8 and a demo 35-135mm from B&H. When I moved to NY I added a used 50/1.4, also from B&H.
 
Pentax ME Super. Tiny little camera with a fast f/2 lens @ 50mm. Aperture priority. I still have it, but alas, the meter is broken and that means it is... toast.
 
My Dad showed me the basics of using a Vitomatic II and a Canonet. I was interested in taking photos of stars, and the public lectures in Hong Kong on astronomy were talking about using SLRs like the Nikon F2, FM, Topcon etc.

My first SLR was Nikon FM2n with a 35-70mm AF zoom. I soon bought a 50mm f/1.4 and 28mm f/2.8, giving the zoom to my sister's friend. Never missed it.
 
Bought a used Pentacon D to go to Euroe with in 1960; the shutter quickly broke. When I got back I sold a mint 1863 Springfield rifle musket for $25 to buy an Exakta 35mm slr.

Today the Springfield is worth $5,000 and the Exakta $25! Never look upon camera purchases as an investment.
 
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