What was your first SLR?

The first SLR I ever owned was a Nikon F, with a Nikkor 50/1.4. Fantastic camera, but not compact. Had it for almost 25 years, then it was stolen. 🙁

First SLR I ever used, however, was a Pentax Spotmatic, taking candids for the high school yearbook.
 
kowa setr2. i hated it then because it wasn't a nikon..my dad...a photographer by trade, bought it for me when i was a student at uni. but it was a great camera in the long run, just not the cool name. 1966 or 67? now i WISH had it or one again because of the AMAZING leaf shutter. it created some fantastic effects when panned horizontally.

would pay pretty much anything to get one in working order....if...? tried the 'bay on occasion but no luck. interesting reads, though, via google. don't recall what lenses i had. 50 and 35 i suspect. wonder if any other mounts are adaptable...IF i had another one...?

went from that to a nikon f2a photomic. still have it and a swag of lenses.

-dd
 
sweathog said:
Mine was an OM20 with Zuiko 50 f1.8 which I borrowed from my mother (and still am five years later). This camera went with her when she travelled, and I like to think that it would come with me if I ever scrape together the money to go travelling.
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Mine was the same thing, but in the USA its called the OM-G. My father had one with the 50/1.8 and He showed me how to use it when I was about 8 yrs old. He bought me one like it when I was 11. I still have my dad's OM-G and 50mm lens, and I have my 50 also, but my OM-G got damaged in a car accident when I was 16 and I sent it to Olympus to get repaired. They tried 4 times and couldn't make it work, so they gave me a new OM-4T !! I still have the OM-4T they sent me, but I sometimes wish I had my broken OM-G to sit on a shelf. It was my first good camera.
 
An interesting read... My first slr was a Practika IVF. I think it had a non-returning mirror, as did my Zenit. On a different point, I recently notice a Leningrad rangefinder at a buy-it-now price of nearly £300 which surprised me. I got one of those for my 21st birthday.
 
As a Christmas gift in 1982, I received a Fujica STX1 from my parents: it was equipped with the Fuji 50mm f 1.9 lens and a 135mm f 2.8. A great camera indeed, it was my faithful companion in my travels: unfortunately its shutter died suddenly few years ago! I still miss it.
 
I started my "carreer" with my father's old ADOX 6x6. When the bellows started to get light leaks I looked for a "real" camera which meant a SLR. My budget as a pupil was however limited. Therefore a german or japanese camera were out of reach. So I decided to buy a "Revueflex" which was a Zenith with Helios lens (2,0/58 mm as far as I remember). The use was bit tricky as the finder was dark as a tunnel, the exposure meter wasn't very reliable, the mirror hit the body like a hammer and I often forgot to close the aperture by hand to the needed stop. Consequently a lot of my pictures were ... let's say A R T 😀. Even when I made everything right the coloured pictures looked like taken with a light yellow filter. Anyhow it was the best (as only) camera I had that time. Then I took the gear into my first holidays towards the mediterranean sea. As soon as the camera "saw" the sea it stopped working and restarted when I left the coast. This was the time I finished our relation and bought a Canon AE-1 which wasn't my first but my first which made what I wanted.
 
OM10, paid for with dearly earned and saved money just after highschool. It got stolen after a few years, while on vacation in Italy. Then I got into the Minolta X-700 with the insurance money. I used X-700's for almost 20 years. Then I got into rangefinders through the Heliar 15.
 
A canon A1 from my dad then another one to go with it, moved onto F1ns when I was a student. Always wanted an F4 but were way to expensive at the time thats why I have so many of them now!
Still got the F1ns and lenses bit dusty.
 
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Minolta SRT101
 
Another one with an OM10 (the databack one) here, and the 50mm f1.8. Still got it - currently sat on the landing waiting for a decent sunrise to finish off the one roll of Kodachrome I will ever shoot. Now joined by another OM10, mostly used by the other half for B&W, and a "parts" OM10 body that turns out only to run a stop slow (judging by ear), so might have to have a guddle inside it... Plus two freebies - a Nikon F3 (!) and a Nikkormat ELW.

First camera - a series of Boots 226X, a crummy plastic p&s that kept breaking whilst still under warranty and being replaced, then a Halina Paulette Electric before the OM10. But what had the most effect on my photography was using a Box Brownie - go figure!

Adrian
 
Anyone recognize this 1960's Topcon SLR?

Anyone recognize this 1960's Topcon SLR?

1966, I traded a used Rolleiflex Tessar TLR for a used Topcon SLR, however I don't recall the model number.

It didn't have interchangeable lenses but did have a rather chunky add on lens that changed the normal lens (50mm?) to a medium length (100 mm plus?).

We were about to emigrate to Canada from England and the Topcon, which did take decent photos, took up much less space. I later swapped it, plus cash, for a Asahi Pentax SV SLR in 1967.

Does anyone recall such a camera by Topcon? It had originally been bought by my boss in Sweden.

Of the two, I wish I had the Rollei back. Looking back, it was probably not a very good swap.

The SV Pentax was an excellent camera and is now being used by one of my Grandsons. It was replaced by a Nikon FM in the mid seventies.
 
Was given as a present an SLR when I was a kid about 30 years ago but couldn't work it, can't remember the make or model, which frustrates me :bang:, as I would like to know why I couldn't work the thing, needless to say I never used it and was eventually sold.

Only recently (this year) buying another SLR which was an OM 1n
 
Cosina made Vivitar 3000S. Garden variety Pentax-K mount K Mart special. I still use this camera - it was purchased, Gawd, forget when - late 80's? Early 90's? My first "real" camera. It's small, lightweight, 2000 speed shutter, great split prism finder... shutter loud even for an SLR. I slap an adapted Pentax SMC 50mm Tac on it... or an adapted Jupiter 9, or Sigma 24 Superwide... All the interchangeable lenses I'll ever need. That's why I stick to the cheap fixed lens rangefinders : )
 
My first SLR was a Nikon F3 with 50mm f1.8 Nikkor AF lens. Hand-me-down from my pops, still working and still taking pictures with it. Can't fathom parting with this one.
 
Wow...read just about every post here. A lot of neat stories.

My first SLR was also my third-ever 35mm camera, and the first I bought with my own money (the first two were. respectively, A Yashica 5000e Lynx, which broke a lot, followed by a Yashica GTN, which didn't break (much), but had one quirk too many). That was a new Canon F-1, bought around late '74-early '75, with FD 50 f/1.4 and 135 f/2.5 lenses and Speedlite 133D. I suppose I was a bit too headstrong to start anywhere but from the top, but I will say I got a ton of mileage from that setup, and learned a lot in the process. I tried a lot of SLRs between then and my farewell from Planet Reflex, but the F-1 was one of the top two SLRs I've ever used (the other being Nikon's F3).

I could say the camera harks from the days of simple cameras and complex minds...okay, I'll leave it at that. 😉


- Barrett
 
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