What was your original equipment?

[fotoDogue]

6 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 Despite my 'no arrow policy' I had to up-vote  this one.

 

Great. 

 

Thanks Ian

[Cryptoprocta]

My first camera was a Pentax Super-A, which I bought second hand from Jessops, together with a Pentax 1.4 50mm, which I more or less never used, a Tamron 70-300mm and a Sigma 600mm (or 500mm?) mirror lens. Sadly, I didn't find the mirror lens to be useful (unsurprisingly).

[Bill Kuta]

A variety of box and small film cameras, both family and my own, first. Waiting for prints from a roll that might have weeks or months of shots on it.

 

First SLR, a Canon FT, purchased from the US PX exchange while I was in Vietnam in 1968. Took a lot of mostly slide shots with that. Match-needle metering with manual aperture setting got one well educated in the relationships between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (and light, of course).

 

While raising our own batch of kids, a variety of point+shoot type film cameras served well.

 

When retirement was in sight in late 90's/early oughts, I set about to play catch-up with a lot of used Canon film cameras (manual and EOS), accumulating a good collection just in time for the digital revolution. Joined Alamy, bought Canon FS4000 film scanner, and submitted scanned slides via CD/DVD.

 

First serious-enough digital, Canon G7. Used mostly for family shots, but have sellers and multiple sellers from it on Alamy.

 

Decided to jump into the DSLR pool with the Canon 5D. Got well acquainted with dust specks.

 

Now almost all Sony mirrorless.

 

 

[Archaeo]

First "proper" camera - Olympus OM-1n with a 50mm 1.8 - for £169.95, a fair chunk of cash for a student back in 1979. Still have it.

 

Owned all of the single digit OM cameras at one time or another, always my favourite 35mm system (Mamiya RB67 for medium format). Sold most of my darkroom kit but still have the stuff to develop B&W film if necessary.

 

Here's an example from the OM-1, sold 4 times for more than the camera cost... not allowing for inflation .

 

 

 

Internal detail from the Neolithic Passage Grave at Dowth, brú na bóinne, Ireland. 

 

[MariaJ]

My first SLR camera was a Minolta X-70.  Leaving my Kodak instamatic behind, I remember how happy I was to have a "real" camera.

[Frank Nordberg]

I took my first pictures with my mother's Kodak Instamatic but I guess that doesn't count.

 

My first camera was a Ricoh XR 500. I bought it and a cheap 400 mm to take pictures of birds but it turned out birds were rather unruly models so all my decent pics from that time are of other things and of people.

 

My first film was Agfacolor and I still love the special color balance it gave (I may be the only person in the world who does that). Afterwards the Ricoh was fed a well balanced diet of Ektachrome and Kodachrome of various ISOs mixed with an occasional Technical Pan for black-and-white and Fuji when I was far away from civilisation and couldn't find any stores selling Kodak.

[losdemas]

First SLR was the Fuji ST605N. I believe that Fuji released two cameras with exactly the same name over the years (why?!) - this was the first one - bought in 1979 with saved wages from my first job. Got a lot of good pictures when limited to a 55mm lens. Used to like FP4 and came to enjoy KR64, before Fuji film became popular.

Inherited my brother's Pentax K2.

Moved to a Canon Sureshot for a number of years before my interest in photography was reignited. Bought a Canon EOS 5 film SLR and sold a limited number of arty images in local galleries and a very few travel images to guidebooks. Gave up (again) at precisely the wrong point when I really should have focused on where to go and what to do with my images.

Did nowt for ages, then bought a Canon 40D and came here. Had that stolen recently (not insured, but circumstances mean that it wouldn't have been covered anyway, so quite pleased that I kept that money out of the insurers hands  - trying to think positively here) and am struggling along with cameras I don't really get along with now. Waiting with increasing impatience for the Fuji X-T20 with the XF18-55mm lens to become available in the UK. 

Full circle! 

 

Sorry, potted history not asked for, I know. Talking too much today (trying to avoid housework )!

[Steve UK]

Started art school with a Pentax mx,one of my dads friends smuggled it back from Hong Kong,  so well loved and used the brass showed through the body, 

[Michael Ventura]

Mine was a Nikkormat FTn with a Nikkor 43-86 zoom, bought in the mid 1970s used.

[famousbelgian]

Fascinating to read everyone's kit history.

 

I started with a Kodak Instamatic when I was a boy.

 

My first SLR was a Chinon CE5 with a Vivitar lens, then I got a Pentax K-1000 with 50mm f/1.2 lens which was a game changer. It made me the photographer I am today, I still have it and would never sell it, it is arguably the best camera ever made and is still used by many colleges.

 

I then moved on to medium format with a used Hasselblad 500CM with 50mm & 80mm T* chrome lenses. My dad bought it for me, I still have the receipt from 1982, he paid £700 which was a lot of money then. It is now over 40 years old and still going strong. I still use it occasionally. I also have a Metz 45 CT-4 flash gun to go with it. I

 

I had a Durst M707 colour enlarger with several Nikon and Schneider lenses, I mostly developed black & white on very large Agfa fibre based paper, sometimes projecting against the wall to achieve the size. I still have it but now use it as a copy stand with the Durst Siriocam attachment to mount your camera to it.

 

Next came a Canon SLR system, can't remember the model. I then entered the digital world with the Canon 20D and got dragged along the upgrade curve with the Canon 30D and 50D.

 

Now using Fuji X-T2 with 35mm f/1.4 and 50-140mm f/2.8 which has completely rejuvenated my photography. What a joy to have manual controls again !!

 

I have the Kodak Instamatic, the Pentax K-1000 and the Hasselblad in a display cabinet in the dining room for nostalgic reasons ...

 

Marc 

[losdemas]

For those of you who have kept your old cameras, I hope you have pictures of them up here on Alamy?!  

[Russell]

3 hours ago, losdemas said:

For those of you who have kept your old cameras, I hope you have pictures of them up here on Alamy?!  

 

Sure have!

 

Made in Angela Merkel country (the defunct GDR) , the Meyer-Optik f/1.8 50mm lens remains a classic. I wonder if I can fit it to my Canons .....?

[Ed Rooney]

I traded a classical guitar for a Nikon F SLR with a non-metered prism and a 50mm lens. I never owned a camera before and had no interest in doing photography, but I drew and painted as a kid. 

[wiskerke]

My 1st camera was an Agfa Click I.

 

 

My first 35mm was a borrowed Olympus Trip35:

 

 

My first slr a borrowed Praktica:

 

After that I owned most of my cameras.

An ( incomplete) list was here.

 

wim

 

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, Russell said:

Made in Angela Merkel country (the defunct GDR) , the Meyer-Optik f/1.8 50mm lens remains a classic. I wonder if I can fit it to my Canons .....?

 

Of course you can.

The Canon Flange Focal Distance is 44mm And the Praktica M42 FFD is 45.46mm.

The cheapest adapters on Ebay will be around 1 euro/$/pound.

Search world wide for  adapter canon m42

 

wim

[vpics]

Should've said my first camera that I used for stock images was the Minolta Dimage 7. The battery was a bit of a problem though.

My first couple of sales paid for the camera (and the additional batteries).

Doesn't happen these days though.  

[Betty LaRue]

6 hours ago, famousbelgian said:

Fascinating to read everyone's kit history.

 

I started with a Kodak Instamatic when I was a boy.

 

My first SLR was a Chinon CE5 with a Vivitar lens, then I got a Pentax K-1000 with 50mm f/1.2 lens which was a game changer. It made me the photographer I am today, I still have it and would never sell it, it is arguably the best camera ever made and is still used by many colleges.

 

I then moved on to medium format with a used Hasselblad 500CM with 50mm & 80mm T* chrome lenses. My dad bought it for me, I still have the receipt from 1982, he paid £700 which was a lot of money then. It is now over 40 years old and still going strong. I still use it occasionally. I also have a Metz 45 CT-4 flash gun to go with it. I

 

I had a Durst M707 colour enlarger with several Nikon and Schneider lenses, I mostly developed black & white on very large Agfa fibre based paper, sometimes projecting against the wall to achieve the size. I still have it but now use it as a copy stand with the Durst Siriocam attachment to mount your camera to it.

 

Next came a Canon SLR system, can't remember the model. I then entered the digital world with the Canon 20D and got dragged along the upgrade curve with the Canon 30D and 50D.

 

Now using Fuji X-T2 with 35mm f/1.4 and 50-140mm f/2.8 which has completely rejuvenated my photography. What a joy to have manual controls again !!

 

I have the Kodak Instamatic, the Pentax K-1000 and the Hasselblad in a display cabinet in the dining room for nostalgic reasons ...

 

Marc 

I agree about the Fujis. When I bought the T1 I felt like a child discovering the world of photography again. Carrying it on with the T2.

[Ed Rooney]

"But I loved developing my own stuff.

 

Favourite film was Kodachrome 25.

 

I did though prefer black and white over colour as it gave more drama and was cheaper to process.  Those chemicals could get expensive.

 

What was all your guys starter equipment, and did you all develop your own stuff?" - Jill

 

To address these other points: I shot mostly B&W in the '60s, Tri-X developed in Acufine, and did my own prints. At some point I switched over to color and used Kodachrome 25. The 64 was too contrasty for my taste. 

 

I once watched W. Eugene Smith make a print, but that was before I owned a camera. I was playing at a jam season in his loft in Lower Manhattan. 

 

I see that Bill K and I were in the Nam the same year, 1967. I was a PJ for an Italian agency. Oh no, Bill was there in '68. Oh my. 

 

Edo

[Travelshots]

The first camera  I owned was a Purma Plus. it used square format 127 film and had a f6.3 fixed focus Beck lens.  It had a focal plane shutter that had a weight attached to the blind. If you held the camera horizontally it gave you a shutter speed of 1/125 .  If you held it  vertically with the weight at the top it caused the shutter blind to fly down with a speed of 1/400 sec and if you turned it up the other way so the weighted blind was against gravity you got a shutter speed of 1/25th sec. ,,,,,,,,whoever invented it was a smart cookie.   It took good quality pics  with a sharp  lens . I think I was 12 years old.    My uncle Harry worked behind the photographic counter at Boots in Bournemouth....... he  taught me how to develop and process film.

[DCSmith]

Original camera was a 126 instamatic and first enlarger was a Federal suitcase enlarger from a local garage sale at age 11 ( 1974 )

Then on to a Minolta SRT-201, a couple of lenses and a Vivitar enlarger at 13.

Left high school with 5 Minolta bodies, 201, 101, 2 X-GM's and an X-700 and 13 lenses.

Went to work for a couple of wedding photographers and invested in a Hasselblad system. Ended up with 5 bodies and 6 lenses.

On the 35mm front I sold the Minolta's and switched to Nikon manual focus, then Nikon auto focus, then Nikon digital, then switched to Canon when the original 5D came out because Nikon told me at the time that a full frame camera wasn't coming soon. Had 3 5D's, still have 2, 2 5D II's, still have them, and 2 5D III's.

The 5D III's are for paying job's, weddings, portraits, architectural and corporate stuff when I can get it. The 5D II's are for stock shooting, unless I need the few things that the III's do better at, and the original 5D's are used a client that I do print on site photo favors for. We print 5x7 max on those so I'll use the 5D's until they die as they're not worth selling otherwise.

[Bill Kuta]

3 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I see that Bill K and I were in the Nam the same year, 1967. I was a PJ for an Italian agency. Oh no, Bill was there in '68. Oh my. 

 

Edo

 

You're doing fine, Edo. I realized that 1967 was the wrong year, and corrected it later to 1968.

 

I'll reiterate that the Canon FT was a good camera to learn on.  You did match-needle metering, and adjusted aperture/shutter speed manually, while viewing the stopped-down scene--no full-aperture metering.  What you saw in the viewfinder reflected the changes you were making. 

[cbimages]

I learned to dive in late 1979 and  6 weeks later bought a Nikonos 3 (rangefinder camera) with the "kit" 50mm lens. And a second hand locally made strobe. Within a couple of months, I had another bigger strobe, and a range of extension tubes and framers for macro work. Then, it was like an "infection" had set in, and I bought a second body, then a couple more lights. I met my husband at the airport, waiting to catch a tiny 18 seater to Lord Howe Island, he had a Nikonos hanging around his neck (was it love at first sight of camera???). He bought me an 18mm Sea & Sea wide angle lens.....and our future together was sealed! Some years later, I decided I wanted a housed SLR camera, and got a Canon F1n with powerwinder and a local bloke who made underwater housings in the back of his garage put together a housing for me. It was pretty hit and miss - the lever to turn the gears on one of my zoom lenses was a beer bottle cap! Because of the basic housing shape and size, I needed to be able to take the viewfinder off the camera and there was a very basic kind of prism in the housing. It was interesting as things were back to front when I viewed them. Taking verticals was a night mare as what I was seeing was not only back to front, but upsidedown as well. Around the same time, I also bought a Canon A1 body from the bloke next door.

 

I really became addicted to buying cameras, and stayed with Canon. In the cupboard are 3 x A1's + 2 x T90's and all lenses from wide angle to a magnificent 400mm 2.8 + 3 macro lenses and a second F1n body & winder. A sunpak ringflash also managed to sneak in somewhere as well, and I still sometimes use it on a non reflective macro subject to add a touch of light.

 

I still have all of the cameras, lenses lights and flashes...........they are like my children!

[Colin Woods]

Zenith E for me. Shutter speed range of 1/8th to 1/500th, weighed a ton and a screw thread M42 lens mount. Nothing like unscrewing your lens like mad while your subject ambles off. All manual with match needle metering, absolutely the best way to learn the relationship between shutter speed and aperture. After that I went to a Ricoh KR5 which had some astounding improvements like prism metering (the Zenith was a light meter window on the font of the prism) and automatic aperture stop down (the Zenith you had to turn the ring to close the aperture down - how many pictures were half a dozen stops overexposed because I forgot this step). 

My two real camera romances were my indestructible Pentax K1000 and the mighty Nikon F4. Just picking up the F4 made me feel like a better photographer. The K1000 routinely gave me some of the best exposed slides ever. My D750 takes gorgeous photos and has features on it that were not even dreamable when I started (ISO12000, image stabilisation...) but its a bit sterile compared to the lush F4.

[Luke Parr]

I started shooting with my dad's Pentax K1000 that he hadn't been using for a few years.  When I got a job as a teenager I decided to upgrade to a more modern SLR and bought a Canon Elan II that still sits in my closet.

[NYCat]

My father gave me his old Pentax ME. Pentax seems to have been a first camera for many of us.

 

Paulette