Film People have asked, What was your first camera?

Technically it wasn't "my" first camera - it was my father's old Leica but it was sitting unused at the time as he was taking pictures with his Nikon F - and he generously allowed me to use it for several years and I don't remember how many rolls of mainly Tri-X. The camera has gone to a different home now - but this picture, which I took in 2013, brings back many memories.

My father's Leica (Kodachrome Mem).jpg
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Technically it wasn't "my" first camera - it was my father's old Leica but it was sitting unused at the time as he was taking pictures with his Nikon F - and he generously allowed me to use it for several years and I don't remember how many rolls of mainly Tri-X. The camera has gone to a different home now - but this picture, which I took in 2013, brings back many memories.

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Got that lived with look
 
My first camera was actually the “family” camera. We couldn’t afford anything else, but I became the one to use it most.

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we would occasionally get film and a flash bar and take pictures during family events like birthdays.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I thought of photography as something special to me. Then the gear race began. Thankfully that has slowed down a lot recently and has not been as heated as it once was.

I do splurge from time to time on recreational gear, but my work gear is normally in an8-10 year replacement cycle.

if that stands true, then I still have quite a few years to go on the D500 and Z6 combo I’m sporting now!!
 
My first camera was a cheap Prinz instamatic which took (i think) 126 cartridges. It was bought when I got a job working in an Hotel on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly way back in 1972. It was ok for what it was but I soon became frustrated by its limitations. When I returned home to Sheffield I purchased a Ricoh KR5 with 50mm lens and was hooked.
 
Kodak Instamatic, too.
This camera forced you to use your brain, getting the adequate aperture and f-stop depending on the ISO of the film used.
You learned the basics with it and I still profit from this start. Manual is my most-used mode to get the results I wish.
I still remember my happiness when I got the result from my first long-time exposure fixing the camera on the window-sill against the wooden frame during a thunderstorm and counting the seconds with f=22 and an Ilford b&w film. Perfect light balance with several flashes over the village.
Kodak Instamatic 250 .jpg
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I remember using a plastic 'box' camera in grade school. It was red and used 120 film I think. Didn't take very good pictures as it was a fixed lens, probably plastic too.
Next camera I remember using was a little Retina which was fun as it took pretty good pictures for a zone focus or guesstimate distance as I like to think of it. My sister has it down in Australia now, sitting on her shelf.
My first real camera, besides the Retina, was a Mamiya Sekor 1000 DTL. My neighbor had been drafted into the Army back in the late '60's and wrote us offering to buy a camera before he came home. He could get them cheaper at the PX. I asked a friend of mine what I should get and he suggested the 1000 DTL since he had experience with a 500 TL.
My neighbor returned with a Minolta SR-T 101 black body edition. He let me borrow it to shoot the races out at Riverside Raceway. I fell in love with that camera. My roll of film was junk as I hadn't wound it onto the take up reel properly, but that didn't deter me. My 1000 DTL finally arrived some time after having been on a boat.
I never jelled with it and don't recall ever getting a decent picture out of it. I think it had a lot to do with the focusing screen. The split image of the Minolta was far easier to focus IMO. I ended up giving the Mamiya to my buddy when he told me he'd dropped his 500 while hiking.
30 some years later, I finally bought an SR-T. I took a photo of my 2 year old son with it that so impressed my mom that she paid for a CLA by Minolta. I've never had a photography class, but have read up on a lot of the 'how to's' of picture taking. I typically don't adhere to the 'rules' of composition since I don't know the 'rules'.
I don't shoot film now as it's too pricey for a retired guy like me.
I love the mechanical cameras and have a few of them in my cabinet.
I really enjoy digital and mixing in the old manual focus lenses every once in a while too.
 
Kodak box camera, when I was about 7-8 y.o.

This is the first photo I remember taking. As it was printed on stipple paper, it doesn't really scan very well. The negative has long since gone to god.

The old Wynnum pier no longer exists, and has been replaced. The boy and dog are probably dead by now. I remember driving there with my Mother, in her then new MGA.

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Hard to say what my first was. My dad was an amateur photographer so whatever the first camera he let me use was my first. I know I put enough rolls through an Argus C3 that I was comfortable using it. Turns out every American sailor in the Korean war brought one of those home. That Old Argus C3. That's how I remember it.

I count my first system kit as my first, and that was from Konica. I had an Autoreflex T and T2, with 2 or 3 Hexanon lenses. I used that kit in high school and into college.

Jimmy Carter was campaigning for president in 1976 at the San Diego Zoo. I skipped school and waited a long time on a rope line to get this. I think it was with a 80-200mm zoom, maybe. Hexanon, though - represent. Exposed with an HP potato masher flash, outside, from about approaching-handshake-distance away. I bet he flinched, but I wasn't taking any chances. The negative travelled with me through a variety of color printing classes.

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