What was your very own first camera?

[Daryl J.]

Some Kodak 110 with a flash. Age 12. And had to share it with my 9 year old sister. I think Dad paid $24.00 for it. Yes he still has it.

We both still thoroughly enjoy photography.

 

[embee06311]

Argus C33. Bought it with my paper route money c1959. Used it through high school, college, the army, and when I got my first real job (and at the time I started to process my film) I got a Pentax H1a (couldn't afford, I thought at the time, a Spotmatic) c1968.

 

[Swift1]

My very first camera was a Minolta Maxxum HTsi Plus with 28-100 and 70-210 kit lenses... IIRC it was nearly $500 in the year 2000...

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

Practika Nova 1968, got it just in time for the Hemisfair in San Antonio, TX. I was 16.
I have to say it was followed quickly by a Pentax H1a, the clacking of the Practika was too much to bear.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

A Canon SLR — I bought a second hand Canon AE-1 Program, shame on me!

My school friends' cameras were typically Minolta-SLRs, or Nikons, or Konicas, so if I would have listened to them, I would have chosen better, I suppose 😉

I sold it quite soon, IIRC after a year or so, because I found out that I do not need any automatisation for a good picture 🙂

 

[brennanphotoguy]

Refurb'd Canon 30D from B&H I got as a 15th birthday gift.

 

[pepeguitarra]

My first camera was a Kodak, I do not remember (I was 12 or so) what kind. I only remember that to focus, I had to walk front and back. The one I remember well came at the college years, a Pentax K1000, which I replaced by the Pentax ME when I got married (1980). The Pentax ME was stolen and replaced with Canon AE1, which my daughter still has. She used it in college too.

 

[lxmike]

Kodak X177 126 Instamatic, in the late 1970's😎

 

[Talus]

I had a Fujifilm Advantix point and shoot in my younger days. It was a birthday gift when I was in my teens in the early 90s. I mostly took pictures of my friends and I hanging out at house parties (mischievous grin). I still have the negatives and about 75% of them scanned to digital. Wish I knew where the camera was now so I could mount it on the wall.

 

[jim0266]

Kodak Instamatic X-15f 126 was actually the first, but the Pentax K1000 was my first real camera, circa 1980. Then: Pentax MX -> Nikon FM -> Nikon F2A

A few weeks back my local camera store had three K1000's in their used cased turned in my one owner. I cherry picked the best body and the 50/1.4 for $69. It's probably been 35 years since I handled the K1000. I was shocked at how heavy and well-built the K1000 feels today. Even the finder is brighter than I would have thought!

 

[mslatfly]

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie Starmite II I got for my birthday when I was around 6, in the mid 60s. I wore out the latch, and the film carrier fell out the bottom when I was 12.

 

[seany65]

Either:

A Polaroid 'Land' camera, that as far as I can remember, could only take black and white instant film packs. I had so much trouble getting the film tabs arranged right in the camera so that pulling one photo out would automatically make the tab for the next photo to stick out ready for removal, that I gave up after the first film.

Or:

A Kodak instamatic 177x camera that took 126 film and had two weather symbols and no other exposure controls. I think I ran about 2 films through it.

I always thought that if the camera makers had carried with the good 126 cameras, which had actual exposure controls and focusing, then 'APS' wouldn't have appeared. What a waste of time that format turned out to be.

My first real camera was a prinzflex 500e with 58mm lens, which I paid £17.50 for in a sale at Dixons in the arndale in Manchester. I got bored with it within a week and took it back and they gave me the pre-sale price of £22 back!

 

[PaulDalex]

Bencini Comet II (made in Italy)
It was in 1953 and I was 8

 

[dtcls100]

Olympus OM-1. I shot a couple of 126 rolls with a Kodak Instamatic before, but the OM-1 was my first camera that I had all too myself. My dad was a bit of a photo buff (he still has his Contaflex Super B at 89 yrs old) and was very encouraging of my very rather expensive interest as a middle schooler. The photo interest -- which led to photo editor and editor in chief gigs for school and university publications -- undoubtedly greatly helped me in getting into very competitive schools for college and law school and really helped my non-photo career. Still have the original OM-1 too, although I lost a bunch of other OM cameras to a burglar in the early 1990's. Glad the burglar missed this one!

 

[jorgef2002]

My first was a Kodak Pony 135 bought in NY Times Square Area in 1961.

 

[underlord]

My very first camera was a Kodak 110 plastic fold-away job. I still have the negatives from the early to mid 1970's. My first 'proper' camera was the venerable Zenit E.

 

[Vadimson]

My very first camera was scale focus, (zone focus) Smena-Symbol

 

[sara]

Ok I'm guessing we are talking about film cameras because my first one was actually one of them Nikon Coolpix with a CF card of 16MB haha!

My first film camera was....drumroll and you wouldn't believe it, a Holga.

and I still have it, because the one I had was a CMYK special edition LOL. 😀

 

[ASA 32]

An official Cub Scout camera, given to me on my birthday about 1954. Long gone, as is 1954.

http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2341&

 

[plummerl]

Kodak Brownie Hawkeye (620)!

http://kurtmunger.com/kodak_brownie_hawkeyeid149.html