Which camera made you fall in love with photography?

Although curious about photography for many years I came to photography late - when in my mid to late '30's. As such I had some means and at some point I decided to "invest" (hahahaha) in a camera. In answer to this specific question, arguably the Leica M3 (double stroke, elephant ears) is the camera that made me love the "game". I previously had an Asahi Pentax SLR and some M42 lenses and was pleasantly surprised at how good they are, but I really fell hard for the Leica. Sadly, the Leica M days are past for me - I have sold them all (having owned several over the years) due mainly to my aging eyes which I found made them too much to cope with - especially as I preferred to shoot longer lenses (wide open if possible).

One thing I particularly found liberating with the M3 was the lack of a meter. I had a hand-held meter and would typically make one ambient light reading at the beginning of a session then put it away. It was a simple matter thereafter to just move the shutter dial up or down as I moved from light to shade. As I mostly shot negative film not slides this worked perfectly well 99% of the time. This gave me a feeling of mastery which was addictive.
 
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While I had a number of Kodak cameras ending with the Pony, the camera that go me hooked was a Konica III. My father got it for me in Jr High School. I took it to school to shoot frog dissection, dances, our 8th grade trip, that and my Vivitar 151 flash. I still remember a picture of a girl in my class on the trip feeding a raccoon.

I got a Vivitar 192 flash when I went into High School and learned to love off camera flash. I shot bands, bouncing the flash off black speakers to get the lighting to come in the right direction.

I got my beloved Nikkormat FTn at the beginning of my sophomore year with an 85/1.8 and shortly after a 24/2.8. I still have both, though the FTn needs some TLC. My oldest screwed up the indexing arm.


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petronius said:
I fell in love with photography years before i held my first camera. My father´s art books from the 60s with wonderful B&W photos and some pictures he had made in Greece that were printed on fibre paper did the trick.
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Yes.

No camera made me fall in love with Photography. The photos my father made, the photos in the Time/Life book series, etc, caught me practically as I was old enough to hold a camera, never mind use one or own one...

G
 
Dear Board,

I fell in love with photography when I got a Canonet 28 and Canonlite D for Christmas when I was a teenager. Being fully auto, the camera and flash would only work when IT determined a photo could be taken. It was perfect for me, essentially foolproof. ;)

With paper route money I could buy film and shoot it and take it Thrift Drugs, or even send it away to Clark Photo Lab. Somehow, perhaps since the camera was automatic, I never got back anything that disappointed me. On the rare times that I missed focus it was clear what was wrong.

I eventually bought a Canon F-1 from a neighbor, and moved to a Canon A-1, and finally a Canon EOS Elan. They all performed well enough my unskilled eye and klutzy hands, but around 2000 or so I gave photography up.

Fast forward to 2004, when a friend gave me an Olympus C-2040. I had drifted away from photography, but this thing that was like a Polaroid on steroids and it rekindled my interest.

Now I have all the film cameras that I wanted when I was a kid, and digital cameras that can do more, both faster and better. Especially when it comes to telephoto work on birds and wildlife.

What hasn't changed much is my talent level, but hey, there is still time! ;)

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA :)
 
I'm not sure I could say that one camera did it. Rather, my interest in photography developed through several cameras, from child to adult, and I could say that said interest was set through a certain camera.

I wanted a camera when I was pretty young. My first camera, when I was maybe five or six years of age, was an Adventurer 620.
A friend of the family had ordered several, for a dollar each and requisite box-tops, and she had an extra.

Next, I wanted a camera with flash, so I got a Kodak Duaflex IV TLR for Christmas in 1959 (I had recently turned eight).

I got to take a photography course in summer school, in 1961, and that was great!

At the university, my sophomore year, I wanted a camera to take photos of friends and such. For Christmas that year, I received a Minolta Autopak 600 (for 126 film), which was a pretty amazing little camera. It had a coated 4-element glass lens (presumably a Tessar-type), zone focusing, and auto-exposure. The magic was when I realized that I could take slides with that camera that would fit in any 35mm projector. I started getting some interesting images.

Soon thereafter, I decided that I wanted to get a 35mm camera that offered more control. So that spring, I got a killer deal on a demo-model Yashica TL-Super (basically a less expensive camera similar to a Pentax Spotmatic). Then things really took off.

- Murray
 
Undoubtedly it was my mother's Kodak 120 Box Brownie. I remember playing with this for hours, with the back removed, catching glimpses of the image from the rear when the shutter was tripped. I don't think I was yet at school at the time, so over 75 years ago. The first camera I owned was an Agfa Clack, which I prized, bought at age 15 from Wagner's Camera in Elizabeth St Melbourne (long since gone) for less than 5 pounds (AU$10). I was really serious about photography at that age. A teacher and small group of us students built a darkroom at school and we developed 120 film by the see-saw method and printed contacts in a small 6x9 frame. The wonder of the b&w process has never left me.
 
My 620 Brownie. Dad would take vacation every summer, we'd drive cross country (before Interstates) and at about 8 years old I snap pictures. Dad would pay for development and a 620 negative would provide a great picture.
 
BillBingham2 said:
While I had a number of Kodak cameras ending with the Pony, the camera that go me hooked was a Konica III. My father got it for me in Jr High School. I took it to school to shoot frog dissection, dances, our 8th grade trip, that and my Vivitar 151 flash. I still remember a picture of a girl in my class on the trip feeding a raccoon.

I got a Vivitar 192 flash when I went into High School and learned to love off camera flash. I shot bands, bouncing the flash off black speakers to get the lighting to come in the right direction.

I got my beloved Nikkormat FTn at the beginning of my sophomore year with an 85/1.8 and shortly after a 24/2.8. I still have both, though the FTn needs some TLC. My oldest screwed up the indexing arm.


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Very nice camera, one of my love
 
My first cameras were borrowed off my dad, a Contessa then a Contaflex B.
I then bought my first camera of my own, a Pentax Spotmatic, but the stop down metering bugged me. My next camera was a Nikon F Ftn and at last I felt the camera was so good I could never blame it for a photo opportunity not working, it just got out of the way.
I've been trying to buy another recently but they have all had problems, I may have to stick to my F2A, serviced by Sover Wong, it'll see me out, if it wasn't for the loud shutter I would prefer it to my Leicas. Sacrilege I know.
Got to say though that I agree with Godfrey, it wasn't cameras that got me into photography, it was going to Magnum exhibitions and the like. And the Time/Life books, I have the full set and they're still fascinating.
 
My father had a Mamiya SLR back in the days, but he didn't trust me with it as a kid, so I never really used it... until the lightmeter didn't work anymore and it couldn't get fixed in the shop, he gave it to me when I was an adult... as I was collecting second hand camera's then....

But the camera where I really fell in love with was the Lomo LC-A, when I was 16-17 years old I learned about it via a friend who had one... And then when I was 18 and started working I bought one with my first salary, that's now almost 24 years ago or so.
From then on I started collecting a bunch of old cameras for 15 years. (I worked in a photo shop for a while too)
But I gave most of them away a couple of years ago since we were cleaning up our house in the pandemic.

Now it's a couple of years ago since I have been shooting film, (I was even leaving my DSLR away and doing everything with my phone, directly on social media). ... yesterday I've put an expired roll in my LC-A again, new batteries... I feel the desire again. (that's why I returned to the forum here)
But this morning, I came across a moment where I took my analog camera and at the moment I wanted to shoot I thought: "but I have my cellphone in my pocket here too... I can directly shoot it with correct exposure and bring it online... why would I shoot it on film?"

Who else deals with this question sometimes?
 
Photos of our family in England prior to my parents’ return to Melbourne sparked my interest in photography, not a camera. These were taken by my father with a 135 format Zeiss Ikon Contess II with a 45mm lens. My elder brother was given a Kodak Instamatic when he was 11. I think he was even less interested in that than I was. No inspiration from that camera then. Soon, however, aged 12, I was using the little Zeiss and I did find the EV exposure value setting on the Compur shutter fixed lens ingenious. But it was the Apollo missions which brought a different camera to my attention, the Hasselblad 500CM. Then my science teacher had an M5 Leica which I used a little. At 17 my father gave me a Leica M2 which has been my inspiration since. The Hasselblad came to me much later, 2018, and that can be said to have been an inspiration too.
 
My first camera was a Pentax P30 with the 28-80mm lens back in 1990. I upped my game a couple of years later when I got a Nikon F3. I remember going to the camera stores in Manchester to buy them. I also got into developing and printing at this time with an Axomat 5 enlarger. I used FP4 and HP5 pretty much exclusively and Ilford multigrade paper.

When I started digital around 2000 I got a Nikon D100 and used my old nikkor lenses on the body. I then got the first Piezography system running on an Epson 1160 printer. I still have fond memories of the P30 and it was a great camera to learn with.
 
petronius said:
I fell in love with photography years before i held my first camera. My father´s art books from the 60s with wonderful B&W photos and some pictures he had made in Greece that were printed on fibre paper did the trick.
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Yes, of course. Long before I ever owned a camera, it was the old Life and Look magazines my aunt had in an old steamer trunk. Magical.
 
Richard G said:
Photos of our family
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Yes. Albums going back to the late 1800s.
Dogman said:
steamer trunk
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Yes. My neighbour lived most of her life in Indonesia and had dozens of photo albums in a trunk, which I was allowed to examine after picking flowers for her.

Analog: early 70s - Lubitel.
Digital: 2004 - Sony DSC-F828
 
Zenit E which was my first camera but it was when I started working in the darkroom I think my true love for photography became aware, it was the control of the complete process that got my juices flowing and seeing my first picture was a goosebump moment.

My niece, 40 something now.

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