Which camera made you fall in love with photography?

[d__b]

A tiny 5 MP Casio Point & Shoot digital camera on a working holiday trip to New Zealand. The camera didn't really matter. It was the beautiful country and also the fact that I was sharing my photos on Flickr and seeing other people's work that inspired me and turned me into a lifelong photography nerd.

This is one of those early pictures I took back then:

Queenstreet Auckland by David B, on Flickr

Such a long time ago now 😳

 

[chuckroast]

First there was this:


Followed by this:



Which led to this:



And - eventually this:



And - ultimately - this:

 

[Bill Clark]

I started with buying a used Sears Tower TLR. It used 127 film so I could make photographs with color slide film.

 

[Freakscene]

A tiny 5 MP Casio Point & Shoot digital camera on a working holiday trip to New Zealand. The camera didn't really matter. It was the beautiful country and also the fact that I was sharing my photos on Flickr and seeing other people's work that inspired me and turned me into a lifelong photography nerd.

This is one of those early pictures I took back then:

Queenstreet Auckland by David B, on Flickr

Such a long time ago now 😳

Indeed, the building in the foreground was a Thai restaurant last time I walked past.

 

[Archiver]

A tiny 5 MP Casio Point & Shoot digital camera on a working holiday trip to New Zealand. The camera didn't really matter. It was the beautiful country and also the fact that I was sharing my photos on Flickr and seeing other people's work that inspired me and turned me into a lifelong photography nerd.

This is one of those early pictures I took back then:

Queenstreet Auckland by David B, on Flickr

Such a long time ago now 😳

Shooting an entire holiday with a small sensor digicam is something fewer and fewer will experience, given that everyone uses smartphones now. But there's something utterly charming about being away and taking in the sights with a pocket camera. Those old Casios were awesome, I used the Z750 for ages. It was always on my belt no matter what other camera I had, with its unlimited video and audio recording. Those features seem like normal now, but in those days, a Canon would record video for only 3 minutes in awful 15fps. It's been over 20 years since those days, so yes, such a long time!

 

[chuckroast]

Shooting an entire holiday with a small sensor digicam is something fewer and fewer will experience, given that everyone uses smartphones now. But there's something utterly charming about being away and taking in the sights with a pocket camera. Those old Casios were awesome, I used the Z750 for ages. It was always on my belt no matter what other camera I had, with its unlimited video and audio recording. Those features seem like normal now, but in those days, a Canon would record video for only 3 minutes in awful 15fps. It's been over 20 years since those days, so yes, such a long time!

That's why I bought a Leica D-Lux Typ 109. They're relatively affordable now that the D-Lux 8 has finally hit the shelves. I don't care what anyone says, that camera at 12mpix produces much better images than my so-called 16/50Mpix smart phone. The big upside of this form factor - apart from the superb Leica optics - is that it can be used fully manually with independent shutter speed and aperture controls ... just as God intended.

 

[thawkins]

This Retina 1a. I bought this camera almost sixty years ago when I was a college freshman. It was followed by SLRs from Miranda and Minolta. Then came the DSLRs and then about twenty five years ago an M3. That was supplemented by a Retina 2a and a QL17. The DSLR gathers dust while the RFs and SRT101 get to work.

 

[boojum]

I have posted the photo of my gifted to me Contax II. It is on its way back from Oleg npw who has restored it to 100% working order, my Lili Marlene. I was first struck by this camera in '53 or '54 when handed it to fondle by a schoolmate whose father liberated it from a German officer in WW II. It impressed me then and impresses me now. To me it is a marvelous machine. Soon back home here. Ilford XP-2 on the way.

 

[WoodallP]

I have posted the photo of my gifted to me Contax II. It is on its way back from Oleg npw who has restored it to 100% working order, my Lili Marlene. I was first struck by this camera in '53 or '54 when handed it to fondle by a schoolmate whose father liberated it from a German officer in WW II. It impressed me then and impresses me now. To me it is a marvelous machine. Soon back home here. Ilford XP-2 on the way.

Good choice of film! Love the stuff. Have done since XP-1 when I was young and my waistline was the same as my leg length!

 

[KoNickon]

My father bought a Miranda Sensorex C back in 1969 or 1970. I was absolutely fascinated by it -- the sheer heft of it; the knobs, levers and other controls; even the velvet-lined case. I don't know that I ever used it much myself but it did yeoman work for other family members. I've since bought a couple myself and that old feeling comes over me whenever I handle them.

For myself, my old Nikkormat FT2 and 50/2 (since stolen) were my introduction to all things Nikon. I have, um, a number of the Nikkormat F models now....

 

[nikon_sam]

Back in high school in the mid 70's there was a teacher's aide (Senior) with this beautiful Nikon camera. I was a Sophomore in Photography...he was an older brother of a classmate of mine and he had a Nikon F with a Photomic finder. He would set this camera on a cabinet in the room and I got many looks at it over time. He also let us use some of his negatives that were from this magnificent machine. Going from Kodak 126 Instamatic produced negs to these made me fall in love with the potential of prints to be made by any real camera.
They were a bit bigger, sharper and better exposed...the thought of "Some day" kept the fire burning for me.

 

[x-ray]

I made my first photos in 1953 with my mothers Ansco 620 box camera and got my first camera, a Brownie Starflash 127, when I was 7 in 1955.

I used to watch my dad in his makeshift darkroom printing B&W images when I was very young back in the early 1950’s and it was magic.

It wasn’t about the camera, it was about recording images of family and friends. I used to take my Brownie SF to school and document my friends, school activities and teachers and those images are priceless now.

I never lost that feeling of magic and even today, 70 years later, making photographs still excites me even after a 55 year career in commercial photography.

 

[boojum]

I have to 'fess up and admit that I had a camera when I was seven or eight, a Baby Brownie, the little black box with a viewfinder on top and a small white button in front that was pushed horizontally to snap a pic. Then I graduated to a Brownie Hawkeye which had a flash attachment. And at ten I was developing the film and printing and enlarging the negatives. But nothing came close to the effect of hefting that Contax II. The immediate message was, "This is a camera!" There was absolutely no doubt that this was some serious picture taking machinery.

The XP-2 and UV filter and Sekonic Sl 208 arrived today. I will be just about delirious when Lili Marlene gets here, "Vor der Kaserne, bei dem grossen Tur, . . . " ;o)

 

[Wenge]

Argus C3 & high school darkroom '77

 

[ddutchison2]

...But nothing came close to the effect of hefting that Contax II. The immediate message was, "This is a camera!" There was absolutely no doubt that this was some serious picture taking machinery.

Much the same reaction to the Contax by me too. Like you, by high-school, I'd been through a succession of the kind of cameras a child could afford - The Duaflex, Diana, various 127's, even a working FED 4 that I found in a bargain bin. When I finally got the cash together to buy a used Contax III (they were inexpensive "obsolete" cameras back in the 70s), I remember that on my first roll I thought "Oh! So this is what a sharp lens looks like". I had no idea until then.

 

[38Deardorff]

One just like this back in 1967

 

[Borge H]

My first real camera was an East-German Practica Nova 1B. I sold news-papers on Sundays and saved money to buy it. This was in the late 60-ties and I was about 12 years old. Unfortunately I dropped the new camera on the floor at a friends place and all shutter speeds lower than 1/60 s was then dead. I got it repaired but it took several months, a life time for a 12 year boy.

But with the camera repaired I took some photos of a wood carving old man and entered a local competition and won the first price!

I knew then that this was my life long interest!

But I wanted to have a rugged and reliable camera. No more sensitive cameras. A Leica M2 was my dream camera. I continued to work and save money and bought two years later a second hand Leica M2 with Elmar 2,8/50 mm from my old English teacher. for 850 Swedish crowns, about 85 dollar. I still have it, but now I also have more Leicas and Nikons....

 

[boojum]

I have often spoken of that magic Contax II I held in '53 or '54 that got me started in yearning. My father bought me a Voigtländer Vito II - which you can see at left - and I was off and running. I was gifted a Contax II and am now awaiting the results of the first roll shot to be sent back fro The Darkroom. I found a CZJ Contax mount 1.5, with a Contax III attached for $200. That will be going to Oleg to be made whole. When I heft the Contax cameras I get the feeling, "Now this is a camera." I guess I am imprinted on them. ;o)

 

[WoodallP]

My father’s Bessamatic. I still have it and it is a beautiful machine I too rarely use!

 

[kxl]

I received a Pentax K1000 as a gift in 1978 when I was in high school. It inspired me sufficiently that one of the first things I bought after I got my first job out of college in the 80's was a camera--a Nikon FE2.