What was your very own first camera?

[mathiasprinz]

yashica electro 35. great camera to start, but i switched, it broke and i sold it.

 

[bobby_novatron]

First camera? A Minolta Hi-Matic my mom gave to me back in the late 1970's. It was a scale-focus model, difficult to use. It got lost in a move many years ago. I don't miss it.

When I was a little older, I got a Nikon FG purchased in 1983 with my father. Great little camera and I still have it. It's as small as a Leica M, very easy to use, 100% alloy body, full Auto and Program modes. They don't go for much on the used market these days, but they're beautiful (and underrated) cameras, IMHO.

 

[borret]

A Zeiss Ikon Ikonta folding camera for 120 film. No rangefinder, so I learned to work with depth of field from the get-go. My father gave me the camera when I was in my teens. He probably bought it in the 1940s.

 

[Jeremy Johns]

I had a kodak 110 when I was six but my first real camera was a A minolta X300 I think. Did the job nicely.

 

[dshfoto]

Argus C3, Rangefinder, 1964.

Still have the negative from one of the first rolls I developed.

 

[k__43]

Beirette SL100 http://www.beier-kamera.de/SL100_1_1.jpg

later I inherited the Praktica BCS of my grand pa

 

[burancap]

Growing up, I used to sneak away to dad's closet to fiddle with his "HANDS OFF!" Nikkormat EL with a 50/1.4 and ever-ready case in the early '70's.

I loved the feel, the heft, the seeming complexity, everything about it -even the smell!

FFWD to the 80's and college and that camera was handed over unceremoniously to me as dad opted for AF for his aging eyes.

I still have the camera... dings, dents, scratches, fungusy lens, and that wonderful smell! It still works perfectly! (I did source a mint 1.4 to keep the old girl going).

It is the ONLY camera I will never part with!

 

[chris00nj]

I had a Kodak 110 camera back in the early 80s. I remember having to use flash cubes

 

[Lauffray]

my Leica M7......kidding 😀
I inherited my cousin's old P&S vivitar, if I remember well

 

[BardParker]

Kodak Instamatic 44 w 126 film

 

[ianstamatic]

instamatic with cartridge flim

kind of figures from my screenname ..

followed by practika super tl

 

[GraflexLefty]

Mamiya 1000 DTL. $50 used and I can still remember buying it some 35 years later.

 

[mbdiesel]

Parents bought me a yashica electro 35 gsn in the late 70s. I miss that camera.

 

[ssmc]

The first camera I bought with my own money (earned working part-time at the local K-Mart in high school) was a Minolta XG-1 with the 45mm f/2 "pancake" ca. 1981 (I put that in quotes as it's not really as "pancake-y" as some "pancakes", if you know what I mean)

I still have it, though the film advance gave up the ghost in '85 (just after I got off the plane in LA on my first solo overseas trip... luckily I had a friend's Canon T-70 bought duty-free that he'd already okayed me to use on the trip if necessary). I never got around to getting it fixed as I subsequently bought an X-700 which seems much better made/finished and is still going strong after an overhaul and new capacitors. Ditto for the well-used X-570 backup I bought that turned out to be even nicer to use than the -700 (because of the way the meter works, and that for some unknown reason the shutter/mirror in the -570 is noticeably smoother and quieter).

Last time I looked at the ol' XG-1 the foam seals had decayed horribly. The lens is a cracker, though! Still near mint despite a lot of mileage and though it does not test very well on flat targets at close distances I have taken some of my favourite landscape and travel pics with it.

Maybe I will send the XG-1 off for repair after all 😉

 

[tifat]

Canon Ftb. My first real camera anyway.

 

[isoterica]

My very first camera that I bought with my own money [prior I used family cameras] was a Polaroid One Step, white with the little rainbow on it, I was in my early teens.

 

[carpark]

Konica EFP2. I was still at school and I shot most of my youth with it 🙂

 

[jim13csulb]

My first was a minolta xd-11 with a 50 1.2 I still have it, and its a nice little camera, but as soon as I bought my m6 i havent gone back 🙂

 

[Aristophanes]

Rollei 35, German made.

My mother was into photography and made an early 1970's trip to Europe where she discovered this camera, and bout a few of them. I was only 8 when she taught me how to use one copy and it pretty much became mine. I think there was a Kodak Instamatic with bulbs before that, but not that I remember like I remember the tiny Rollei.

 

[FlyingLotus]

Nikon FG with a Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8. I still have and love it to this day.