# What was your first camera?



## Mike_E (Jun 23, 2009)

What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?

What was the first camera that you bought yourself?

My first was a Kodak Brownie at age 5.  Then I got to play with my dad's Argus (with supervision )

The first one I bought was a Minolta SRT 101.  Just before heading to Daytona Beach.


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## Arkanjel Imaging (Jun 23, 2009)

Mine was a good ol Pentax K1000.  What a workhorse.  Sometimes I miss the simplicity.


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## mcoppadge (Jun 23, 2009)

My first camera was a Canon AE-1 that my dad bought in college. I was around 9 or 10, I think.

I bought my first camera last year when I got my D300. Saved up for years to get that thing (the woes of a college income). I was first going to get the D80, then the D200, but I found a good deal on the D300 so I went with that.


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## Blank (Jun 23, 2009)

Nikon FG-20, in 1985. Paid for half after my parents matched half, saving from my part time job delivering papers.


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## SonnarSphere (Jun 23, 2009)

Mike_E said:


> What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?


 some kind of Kodak instamatic with disposable flash-cubes. mid 1970's. i was about 6 or 7.



Mike_E said:


> What was the first camera that you bought yourself?


a Praktica SLR + Pentacon 50mm. Probably an MTL3 or a Super TL, bought around 1980.


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## itznfb (Jun 23, 2009)

i can't even remember the first camera i was given. it was wide and flat.
my parents got me a crappy vivitar before we went to mexico... 
first camera i baught myself was a nikon coolpix 4600


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## usayit (Jun 23, 2009)

Mine was my father's Minolta 7000 

Story...
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/collectors-corner/69296-old-buddy-minolta-7000-returns-home.html


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## benhasajeep (Jun 23, 2009)

First camera I specifically asked for as a gift, was a Kodak Handle.   Think I was about 7-8 at the time.  Their version of an instant film camera.  Of course Polaroid sued them and Kodak had to stop selling the film and destroy all their stock.  I still have a Kodak Handle and a sealed full package of film (not my original camera though).

The first camera I purchased was a Kodak 110 from my fathers camera store.  He tried to give me an older used Nikon 35mm but I wanted that slick looking silver 110.  I was about 9 at the time.  I was really upset as I lost it about 5 months later when we had a boating accident.

First 35mm purchased was a Nikon 6006.  I was 21 at the time.  It's been down hill since.


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## Steph (Jun 23, 2009)

My first camera was my dad's battered black Pentax Spotmatic F with a SMC 50mm f/1.4. When it stopped working and could not be fixed, I bought another Spotmatic F (a chrome body in very good condition) and still use it. Since then I added a couple of lenses.


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## skieur (Jun 23, 2009)

Kodak Starmeter and I was 11 years old. This was before SLRs were on the scene.

skieur


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## Dagwood56 (Jun 23, 2009)

My first camera was a Kodak 126 Instamatic when i was 10 or 11 years old, too long ago to remember my age to be honest. Used it and my mother's Kodak Brownie till I was out of high school and then moved on to my father's Agfa Isolette. The first camera I ever purchased was a Yashica TL Electro.


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## JerryPH (Jun 23, 2009)

My first camera was my dad's Nikon F2a.  I was introduced to photography by my dad in the early 70's as a pre-teen.  The first camera I bought myself was the Nikon E8800, then the D200, and now the D700.  The last 3 happened over the last nearly 4 years.

I still have the E8800, it is an awesome P&S and my carry 'round camera in the car when I don't carry a dSLR (which is rare).


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## EhJsNe (Jun 23, 2009)

The first camera I used was a store brand film P&S. I was about 5....it was the family camera....
THen we got a Kodak CX6445 Digital camera....I hated that thing with a passion...

MY FIRST camera was a Yashica Electro 35, still have, will never get rid of it. I want to be buried with it, I want my body to be posed as if I died taking a picture. And if I have a loving family, im sure one of them will think to put a roll of film in it for me. (All of my friends are aware of these plans if for some reason I die before I should...and all of them know to have the lens cap on....because I always composed shots with the lens cap on...then take it off just long enough to snap the shot..its just a joke thing me and my friend do)
That thing is awesome! I am told it has a leaf shutter, so flash sync is anything I want! The built in meter is super accurate! And the lens is tack sharp.

I got camera when I was 12 (im 14 now) I beleive it was towards the end of the 7th grade school year....

After the Yashica...I got an Olypus Trip 35, then a Polaroid 250 land camera (because it looked cool) than a brownie chiquita (spanish version of the bullet) and finaly my most recent camera (in my collection) is my most prized possesion is my Kodak Junior Six-20 Series II with box and original paperwork. Somewhere along the way I got a six-20 box camera...I found a roll of film in there....I want to get it devoloped but it costs too much.

I have 2 SLRs, a Nikon Fm10 (first SLR) and for my birthday i got a D70. With my birthday money I got a 50mm f/1.8D.


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## PhotoXopher (Jun 23, 2009)

I wish I could remember the brand... it was a full manual film camera my grandma gave me on my 5th birthday I think it was. Had the cube flash on top and I nearly blinded myself with it one night


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## Threesia (Jun 23, 2009)

I'm sure I had a camera in my early years but don't remember it. The first one I remember is a talking "Polaroid" I got for my sixteenth birthday. I still have it and it still works.


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## tirediron (Jun 23, 2009)

Hmmm... my very first camera was a second (Third? Fourth?) hand Kodak 220 camera with fixed lens. The first 'real' camera was a Miranda, with a 50mm F2 and a T-mount 135 f4 lens. No built-in light-meter and a maximum shutter speed of 1/500th of a second, but damn, I loved that beast.


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## Chris of Arabia (Jun 23, 2009)

Mine was some sort of hand me down Kodak Brownie that took 126 roll film. Guess I'd have been 6 or 7 at the time, so that would be the late 60's.

The first one I bought myself was a Canon A-1 - I still pine for the feel of one of those in my hands.


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## bhop (Jun 23, 2009)

My first camera was a Ricoh KR-10M.  I bought it for photography classes in maybe '92.  I still have it.  I've thought about selling it, but maybe i'll keep it for sentimental reasons, since it's not really worth anything now anyway.  Before that, if I ever took any photos, I used my parents p&s.


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## KevinDks (Jun 23, 2009)

First camera - Kodak Instamatic 126. Can't remember the model number, but it had X in the name. Christmas 1974 or '75, so I was 9 or 10. Still have some prints taken with it in 1980 on a school trip to Austria.

First camera I bought myself - Pentax ME Super, October 1983 during my first term at university. In the UK in those days if your parents weren't rich the government used to _give_ you money to go to college, and suddenly I had £800 in my bank account...

Kevin


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## Dwig (Jun 23, 2009)

First Camera:
  Hand-me-down Kodak Vest Pocket Autographic 127 ( Camera Collecting and Restoration ) from my paternal grandfather via my father. It was later replaced by a Kodak Vigalante 620 that had been my fathers and became mine when, as a 6th grader, I disassembled the broken shutter, repaired it, and reassembled it. (it still works some 45 years later). I frequently borrowed my father's Sears Tower 35 (fixed lens RF made by Iloca circa 1957) and a Stecky (16mm sub-minature from the late '40s).

First camera I purchased with my own money:
  The absolute first was a Minolta-16 II (16mm sub-minature purchased my freshman year in High School) that was fairly quickly followed by a Miranda G with a 50mm f/1.9 lens later that same year.


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## bigboi3 (Jun 23, 2009)

First Camera was an old polaroid camera back in grade school.  Can't really remember the model.

First camera purchased was a couple years ago.  A 12mp fuji-film P&S.


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## Patrice (Jun 23, 2009)

The first camera that I had regular access to and with which I first started taking photos was a Speed Graphic. Then bought with my own money a kodak instamatic, then a Rolleiflex,  then .... 30 cameras later the cupboard is full and I'm not done yet.


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## KmH (Jun 23, 2009)

Mike_E said:


> What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?
> 
> What was the first camera that you bought yourself?
> 
> ...


All right, another old fart. Pretty much the same story.

The family Brownie, first use age 7, first SLR, the Minolta SRT 101.


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## Garbz (Jun 24, 2009)

My first SLR was a Nikon FE. I had a point and pray film camera that spent quite a bit of time jamming and not advancing film, but that was before I got into photography. I inherited it from my parents when they went digital along with a 50mm f/1.8 and some other Tokina lenses which have since died.

First camera I bought myself was my current D200.


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## c.cloudwalker (Jun 24, 2009)

First was a Kodak Brownie which later went to my younger sister. Got it back a few years back when she was getting ready to toss it.

First bought was a used Minolta SRT 101 just a couple years after the Brownie.


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## Crazydad (Jun 24, 2009)

The first one that was truly mine was Pentax ME that my sister gave me when she got bored with it. Had it for a number of years, great camera.

The first camera I bought was a Nikon 6006 in back in '93. Sadly I gave it up a few years later just because I couldn't (wouldn't?) afford the film and processing.


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## CW Jones (Jun 24, 2009)

Mine was a Pentax SF-10, still have it, only got it about 3 years ago or so. It's the camera that got me into photography


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## table1349 (Jun 24, 2009)

This was my very first camera when I was 7:





It cost me $0.25 and I won got if from a carnival claw machine. (probably cost my folks about $1.00 before I got something)  Really worked and used Minox 9.5mm film.  

From there I graduated to this:




It was my uncles.  He got it in Europe in 1956 when he was there on business. He lent it to me in 1966 when I was about 12 and I shot with it until I was 16.  

At 16 this was my first very own really and truly camera.  By then I was in love with photography and had saved every bit of money I earned or received.  




Bought used and was much loved through the years. ( I still have this thing)

The final two bodies.  My most beloved of all and used until I went digital a few years ago.  





Nikon F2 photometric




Nikon F2AS


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## RMThompson (Jun 24, 2009)

First "camera" was some cheap 35mm autofocus thing... but the first camera where I was thinking about the photos as I took them was a Minolta QTsi SLR, during the Montgomerey Wards selloff in 2001. 

After that it was a Canon A610 Powershot... which I actually started with when I started thinking of a career.

Then it was a Nikon D50... and later this year (crosses fingers) hopefully a D90!


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## Torus34 (Jun 25, 2009)

Bolsey B.  Age 13.  Still have the first slide.


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## pixpal (Jun 25, 2009)

Pentax spotmatic F
:mrgreen:


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## Sachphotography (Jun 26, 2009)

Mine was a 1966 Canon FT with a 50mm f/1.8. 100mm f/2.8 and a 70-300mm zoom f/4-6.5
Golden oldy. Works great to this day. Well he needs some loving and cleaning but I'm working on it.


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## WTF? (Jun 26, 2009)

first camera was an olympus sp-310. i was 13 or 14, youd think id be able to remember, it was only a couple of years ago haha


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## Soujiro (Jul 1, 2009)

Some old Nikon with a huuuge lense (that could easily see down the street). Digital wise, kodak easyshare. I still haven't found the funds to get a DSLR but my P880 does the trick fine.


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## Joves (Jul 1, 2009)

My first was the 120 tower my grandpa gave me whaen I was 9, it was made for Sears. The first 35 I got was another made for Sears a friend sold for $25, then my first brand spanking new 35 was the Pentax MX which I have somewhere in storage.


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## Techuser (Jul 1, 2009)

Olympus D-390

at the time, 2mp looked so much :meh:


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## LaserSailor (Jul 1, 2009)

My first camera was a Pentax ME Super, I still have it, it's right over there. The shutter is busted and the meter doesn't work but I'm not getting rid of that nostalgic little paperweight. 

Then in high school I saved up and bought a Nikon N80 so I could shoot for the yearbook. I think I spent a few hundred, it's been 9 years, so i forget how much I paid. I still use it daily. 

Then came the age of the DSLR, my first was a Nikon D70 bought in 2005 on the island of Guam. And last year I bought a Nikon D200 for $600 brand new. 

I'm already eyeballing a D700 . . .


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## TriniPhototakeoutta (Jul 1, 2009)

First cam i ever use, as far as i could remember was a yashica fx-3. My dads own. Still has it and working.







First Digital was the Fujifilm Fine Pix A330. 3MP, 3x Zoom. Was a gift my dads office gave him. Still have it and working.






Second Digital was the the Kodak EasyShare Z740. 5MP, 10x Zoom. Still have it and working.






Third Digital was a Fujifilm S1000fd. 10MP, 12x Zoom. My dad bought this camera for me December 2008. Sold it to upgrade.






First camera and first dslr i bout for myself is my current Nikon D60 which i only got last week. Don't think i'll be trading this up for a while. Kinda broke. lol.






I guess i have been through alot of cameras. lol.


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## Mitica100 (Jul 2, 2009)

Mike_E said:


> What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?
> 
> What was the first camera that you bought yourself?



I had a cheap bakelite Romanian made camera called Orizont (Horizon) for my first camera. It ran 120 size film, so I got right away into MF! 

As for the first camera I bought, it was a 35mm Russian Zenit B, which I bought in Brno, former Czechoslovakia in 1973. That lasted until 1983, when it ceased to exist. I tried fixing it and was left with a whole bunch of parts which didn't fit anywhere. Ever since that 'fix' I got obsessed with repairing and restoring cameras.


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## Ray Morgan (Jul 2, 2009)

A used Pentax K1000, with which I took about 10,000 shots a year for (technical photography, mostly in support of litigation) for many years. Since it was all-manual auto-nothing, it was a perfect for learning the mechanics of how to create photographs, and IMO the ideal type of camera for someone to "learn to drive" with.


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## Big (Jul 3, 2009)

Mine was a Fisher Price film camera when I was a little kid...Maybe around 8 or so. It was definitely a sweet camera! haha:lmao:


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## xmaxonx (Jul 3, 2009)

My first camera was an HP digital camera that came with a printer that I got. I believe I was 11 or so. After that camera, my pops gave me old cameras of his and used those until this year.

Two months ago, I saved up some money and decided to buy a new camera. I checked around and ended up buying a Canon XTi with kit lens on ebay for $366 shipped. It's in great condition and I was surprised that I found it. So far this camera is great and I hope to pursue photography more.


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## MACollum (Jul 3, 2009)

I had an old Vivitar when I was about 10. I hardly took any pictures though because I never had money for developing. The first camera I bought was an Ansco. It was completely automatic but I liked that it wound the film when the roll was done so I didn't have to.


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## jwPhotographer (Jul 23, 2009)

Mike_E said:


> What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?



My father's 1965 Asahi Pentax Spotmatic, which I received in 1983, then gave to my daughter when she turned 13.




Mike_E said:


> What was the first camera that you bought yourself?



I bought myself a Nikon 2002 around about 1988 or so.


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## Iron Flatline (Jul 24, 2009)

Bought a Canon AE-1 in High School when I was 16 in 1984. I just found it the other day at my mother's house.


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## Clawed (Jul 24, 2009)

*What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?*
*What was the first camera that you bought yourself?*

Well, my first camera was also the first one I bought for myself, as I have never received one as a gift. I do not remember the exact model, but it was a *Kodak Advantix Camera* I purchased in 2001 (I was probably 20 at that time). Thus, Advanced Photo System film is all the film I have ever used. Not a bad little camera at all!


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## MikeBcos (Jul 24, 2009)

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie at age 8, I used that for a couple of years then graduated to a Kodak Instamatic 126. I used that for 6 years then I got a point-n-shoot of some kind for my 16th birthday. I soon traded that for my first SLR, a Russian Zenit - I wish I still had that camera!

That was swapped on my 18th birthday for a Konica FT-1 and a Konica TC package, I still have the TC and still run the odd roll of film through it.


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## smyth (Jul 24, 2009)

Well, my absolute first camera was a Crayola camera (see below) lol when I was 6 or 7.







Then I got more interested in photography when I was beginning high school, and used my parents' Yashica FRII






Then a few years ago I bought my first Digital P&S my Coolpix 5900, and then last year I got my D40.


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## dmatsui (Jul 25, 2009)

I started off with a Kodak DC3200 lets say about 10 years ago




Then moved to a nikon coolpix l3, perhaps 5 years ago




and about a year and a half ago i got a nikon d80. After i get my dads Olympus OM4-T repaired i'll be experimenting with film aswell.


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## Phranquey (Jul 25, 2009)

First camera I used was a borrowed Canon AE-1P

First camera I was given was a Minolta X-700

First camera I purchased for myself was a Nikon F3


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## Plankton (Jul 25, 2009)

Pentax K1000.


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## error99 (Jul 25, 2009)

my first camera was olympus om-1, then i bought for myself canon 350D


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## Josh66 (Jul 25, 2009)

I can't remember what it was.  It was a 110 P&S hand-me-down though.

The oldest one I still have is a Canon Elph 2 APS camera.  I loved how small it is.


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## IgsEMT (Jul 29, 2009)

Coolpix 5400


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## UUilliam (Jul 30, 2009)

My first camera...No idea, most likely a disposable
First camera *I* paid for - Pentax Optio E-30
First _REAL_ camera - Canon EOS 450D


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## Actor (Jul 30, 2009)

The first camera that I was "allowed to use" was the family camera.  It may have been a brownie.  It was a simple box camera with a fixed lens and shutter speed.  The WLF was a small piece of ground glass on the top.  It used 620 film which you advanced with a knob on the side.  There was a small red filter on the back which allowed you to read the exposure number that was printed on the paper backing of the film.  The pictures were rectangular, not square.  I think my mother still has it.  I recall taking a lot of pictures with it when I was 13 or 14.

The first camera I had that was exclusively mine was a Kodak box camera.  It had a flash molded into the body that used bulbs.  It used roll film, either 620, 120 or 127, I can't remember.   The pictures were square.  It had eye level viewing and, like the family camera, you advanced the film with a knob and looked through a red window to see the frame number.  I was 16 or 17 when I got it.  I had it in high school, college and through the army.  When I got to college I began splurging and buying color film.  I would show my mother the B&W pictures I took but not the color pictures.  I didn't want her to know I was being extravagant and buying color film.   I don't know what became of this camera.

I had one other camera given to me by my brother, which he bought in Japan on his way home from Viet Nam.  It was a 35mm Olympus that took half frame exposures, up to 72 frames on a normally 36 frame cartridge.  You focused by the numbers on the focusing ring.  I was my first camera with a built in meter.

The first camera I bought for myself (actually my wife and I bought it for ourselves) was an SLR that used instamatic cartridges.  It had a leaf shutter in a screw mount lens.  We only had it for a short time.  It and the Olympus were stolen by burglars.  We're pretty sure the burglars were kids because the only other things taken were a half-gallon can of tomatoes, a quart of ice cream and an uncut chocolate cake.

The replacement for the stolen cameras was a rangefinder which we bought from Sears. (See the "Nostalgia" thread.)  It appears to have been a Ricoh 500G with a Sears logo.  I must have been about 27 or 28.   Wonderful camera.  Split image focusing and center-the-needle exposure adjustment.  I don't know whatever happened to it.  Yesterday I was looking at some slides taken in Great Smokie Mountains National Park and I'm certain they were taken with that camera.  That trip was in 1985 so I must have still had it then.  I suspect it disappeared when we moved in 1987.

From 1987 to 1994 the only cameras I owned were a series of instamatics that are not particularly memorable.  Just before Christmas 1994 my wife asked me the usual "what do you want for Christmas" and I gave her my usual list.  Then she asked "if you could have something really nice what would you want?"  My immediate answer was an SLR.  I had something like a Pentax K-1000 in mind.  What I got was a PZ-20.  The entire family pooled their money and got it for me.


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## YellowBay (Jul 30, 2009)

Olympus OM-10. With motor wind!


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## Laika (Jul 30, 2009)

The first camera I used was my dad's Pentax K1000. A camera that I couldn't really appreciate at the time (I was 10). I still have it, but I haven't used it in ages.

The first camera I bought for myself was a Vivitar Vivicam with 2.0 mexapixels. Not a good camera, but all it really needed to do was survive the rough treatment I put it through.


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## Pugs (Jul 30, 2009)

Hm...

First camera was a Kodak Instamatic 104, I was seven-ish. 

When the Instamatic broke/was lost/was stolen by a sibling/disappeared into the black hole that children lose stuff into, I graduated to a Kodak Ektralite 10... I was seriously hot sh!t with that bad boy!

Following the Ektralite's demise (again, that blackhole of childhood), I was camera-less until sometime as a teen, my Big Brother from the Big Brother/Big Sister Organization, GAVE me his Konica Autoreflex T2!! This SLR is the camera that he had dragged all over the world. My serious interest in photography started when we'd be playing chess in his living room and I'd spend more time staring at this enlarged print of Mount Kilimanjaro than at the chess board. He had taken that photograph with the same camera he gave me. I dragged that cast-iron beast of a camera all over Chicago and felt perfectly safe, 'cause if someone tried to accost me, I could knock 'em out with and not damage the camera! The Konica Hexanon lenses are some of the greatest glass, in my opinion. 

The first camera I bought myself was a Kodak Advantix camera to have in the pocket for when I didn't want to drag out the Konica. 

Hm... somewhere in there I picked up another Konica body, an Autoreflex nT3. I don't remember if this was before or after the Advantix. 

To replace the Advantix, was a P&S Kodak EasyShare and I've now been through a couple of those due to droppage.  My wife claims the most recent one as hers. 

When I semi-retired the Konicas (they still work and I still shoot with them from time to time and the time between those times keeps getting longer), I bought "The Other Eye", my D300 (yes, I named my camera... I name most of my machines, LOL).


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## Plato (Jul 30, 2009)

Clawed said:


> *What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?*
> *What was the first camera that you bought yourself?*
> 
> Well, my first camera was also the first one I bought for myself, as I have never received one as a gift. I do not remember the exact model, but it was a *Kodak Advantix Camera* I purchased in 2001 (I was probably 20 at that time). Thus, Advanced Photo System film is all the film I have ever used. Not a bad little camera at all!



Excluding the several Kodak Brownies that I owned, my first real camera was the Honeywell-Pentax Spotmatic with the f/1.4 lens, which I bought new in 1964.  (Manufactured by Pentax and imported by Honeywell, hence the dual labeling.)  I still have it and it still works.  Of course, it should.  The price, including lens, was $400 in 1964 dollars although I got $100 off as a Honeywell employee.


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## JerryPH (Jul 30, 2009)

Plato said:


> Clawed said:
> 
> 
> > The price, including lens, was $400 in 1964 dollars although I got $100 off as a Honeywell employee.
> ...


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## MBasile (Jul 30, 2009)

The first camera I "owned" was an Olympus OM-1. It had been my moms camera in college and then she gave it to me when I expressed interest. My granddad taught me the basics of photography on that camera. After that I was given a Minolta Maxxum5 when I was still young. However, as I got older and in high school I lacked access to a darkroom and dropped out of photography until I bought myself a Sony A100 in January of '08. January of '09 I upgraded that to the A700.

I don't use the Minolta anymore, but I do still use the Olympus that I learned on.


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## Plato (Jul 30, 2009)

JerryPH said:


> Plato said:
> 
> 
> > Clawed said:
> ...


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## Boutte (Aug 1, 2009)

Mike_E said:


> What was your first camera and how old were you when you got it?
> 
> What was the first camera that you bought yourself?
> 
> ...


 


Arkanjel Imaging said:


> Mine was a good ol Pentax K1000. What a workhorse. Sometimes I miss the simplicity.


 Brownie and Pentax k1000 were my first two cameras.


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