Your first camera?

[Skyline]

Can you remember your first camera?

My sister had some old pictures of our family. I scanned them and ask why was I holding that camera. She said I used to love clicking away (don't remember it at all lol).

Anyone know what camera was in my hand? It would have been my first





Click here if you need to zoom in...... http://www.flickr.com/photos/5246926...in/photostream

[Shadowman]

It looks like a Kodak Instamatic. My first camera was a Polaroid SX70, I still have it around here somewhere.

[steve40]

That's a pretty good quess, but all the instamatics I ever saw had a flash cube socket, not a hot-shoe. The style is pretty common for the era 50-60 ??, and the possibility is - it is a 35mm model. Maybe Agfa, also all instamatics were well endowed with the Kodak name, very visible, like all over the top of the front.

My first camera was a Kodak Six-16 bellows camera, like my avitar.

[Steaphany]

My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 100, the very first model, and it predated the flash cubes. The flash was with disposible bulbs that had wire contacts that made the connection to the terminals in the pop up flash reflector. I still have this camera and it is still fully functional.

[Colin Southern]

Anyone know what camera was in my hand?

It's a Kodak Instamatic 50

[steve40]

Nope; Kodak instamatic 50 was a 110, It does not look like any instamatic I ever saw, or a net search will reveal. See link below for a instamatic 50.

http://compare.ebay.com/like/3603589...=sbar&_lwgsi=y

[steve40]

Ok, it is an Instamatic, but its a Hawkeye Instamatic, never saw one!. Other than the difference in color, this is the same camera. I downloaded the OP's image and enlarged it as much as I could, and I could tell there is some printing on the left side of the top of the camera, well both sides, the image is just to noisy to make it out. But I have no doubt, it is the same camera as below.

[rpcrowe]

My first "REAL CAMERA" was a Mercury half-frame 35mm. It shot 72 exposures on a 36 exposure roll and, as a kid, I would have to save up for weeks to have a roll of film processed...




It was a unique camera with a circular-rotating shutter - hence the circular bulge at the top of the camera. It had a fast (for the 1950's era f/2.7 lens and a shutter speed of 1/1,000 second...

[Colin Southern]

Ok, it is an Instamatic, but its a Hawkeye Instamatic

Nope, it's a Kodak Instamatic 50

http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kodak_Instamatic_50

Edit: Just for fun, I found a similar shot of an Instamatic 50 - down-sampled it - added some noise - blurred it slightly, and put it alongside the same crop from the original picture)

[steve40]

They should not have made two of these, this one and a 110 version, and called them both 50. Wonder what the difference in the instamatic 50, and the Hawkeye version is, since its pretty obvious except for color they are the same. Probably a dollar for the Hawkeye name on it, oh yea! and $.50 for the designer color.

Oh, while I am thinking about it. Canon made a S100 digital version, before the present day S100 back in 2000. These camera companies need to get their stuff together, and quit repeating model #, it gets confusing.

[darekk]

My first camera was Soviet CMEHA 8M [Smyena 8M] received as one of gifts for first communion, this particular gift from my godfather or from godmother or from both. I am not sure. Approximately at the age of 10.
That was camera analogical to today's compacts, with central shutter. Without TTL and photometer - shutter speed and aperture were set using intuition.
Very popular camera. And black and white films, because color photography was too expensive. However color images those times were very crapy, even shot on films from DDR.
There were also Polish cameras available, especially earlier, but they disappeared somehow. Maybe Soviets didnt want to allow other countries to develop too advanced technology.
The second one was Zenit TTL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera)
also Soviet, later with Practica's 200 mm lens. Practica cameras from DDR were too expensive. But according to some of people Zenit was copy of Practica. And Soviets also grabed german technology and industrial equipment on the verge of World War II and afterwar times. Obviously they had right to do it, after all those mass murders, maybe even so huge like their own murders since 1917. Used western cameras like Nikon, Canon, Olympus etc were too expensive even more, like a vehicle. Zenit TTL was SLR camera with manual focusing, but had the microraster helping set focus. And the Fresnel lens increasing brightness ... The light was measured Through The Lens, what was very innovative those times. With exchangeable lens allowing to add extension tubes and shoot frogs or butterflies.



(damaged manual, looks like crap, but maybe interesting, Soviet)



(old tanks to process B&W films, Polish, I have still 2 or 3 somewhere)

I had also opportunity to rent Pentacon and Practisix cameras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentacon_Six
(6x6cm, from DDR, very good) in such circle of interests for young people. There was also free darkroom there. Later I bought own enlatger



(Magnifax enlarger, czech, still have it but almost never used ..., there were also Polish - Krokus)

but it was too late because outstanding color Kodak and Fuji labs entered and there was no sense to process on own ...
Next camera was used Minolta 500si soon replaced by Minolta 700si, first ones bought for own money. It was somehow just after falling of communism. First new western cameras or much much cheaper smuggled across the border were available. Actually everyone used to buy smuggled cameras in my opinion, to ommit restriction of thieves from the government and official dealers, enormously rising taxes and prices. Then they earned nothing in practice.
Next ones were Canon cameras and lenses, most of them bought in the USA, significantly cheaper than Nikon and maybe even slightly more better (MTF tests for basic lenses), when I decided to switch between companies. At least three most applicable for nature photography (standard and tele zooms + macro). Minolta had still good bodies, legendary mosaic light measurement, 500 mm mirror lens with AF, but other lenses seemed to be worse and very expensive.

------

This is thread being answer to question regarding that Kodak camera from first message ... Some of posts are simply misleading ... But I don't delete my message.

[Black Pearl]

This has got me thinking. I had a Polaroid camera as a kid - a big brown thing that shot mono......a Swinger or Super Swinger I think......but my first real camera was a Konica Autoreflex A which I still have somewhere in the loft. The thing I remember is how good the Hexanon lens was and the fantastic noise the camera made when I took a photograph. My next camera was a Nikon FG and I've been a Nikon user ever since.....not just Nikon mind, I've had countless other SLR's and compacts.......there have been too many to list as I've worked in a camera shop for 22 years so you can imagine the temptation I've endured or gave into.

[Skyline]

Great old cameras being posted

Thanks to Colin and Steve to work out what camera it was. If I still had it it would be worth £2 on ebay lol

[Tringa]

The first camera I owned was a Halina 35x



It was fully manual and looking back I am surprised that I got any reasonable shots. For the first few years I had it I estimated the exposure from the guide that came with the films. One slightly odd thing about it was that to load a film all of the back and the baseplate had to be removed.

The progress was then through Pracktica(can remember the model), Zenit E, Pentax KX(which I still have), other K mount cameras, Panasonic FZ28 and now Pentax K5.

Dave

[CougarFool]

Practica Super TL then an Olympus OM10 then a OM2 SP then a Canon 300D and now a 550D.

[keith201]

THe first camera I ever used was my dad's old Kodak No.1 Autograph Junior which was current from 1914 to 1927. I was about 4 and was allowed to take a photo of my mum. Don't know where that is now! However....

THe first camera I bought for myself was a 1951 Voigtlander Bessa II, a folding camera with a coupled rangefinder. It took 12 exposures on 120 film. After a while I traded that for a Voigtlander Vito IIa, a35mm folding camera and after that a 1952 Braun Paxette with an extinction light meter. Talk about high tech! It was a long time before I got a 'real' lightmeter, for some time I used a Johnson's Exposure Calculater, somewhat like a circular slide rule. I still have that calculater in my collection somewhere (I think).

[acsky]

My first camera was a Kodak Ektra 90, 110 film.

It was a birthday present I believe. Still have it. Not handy to take a picture of it right now, but it is like this one, except mine is all black.

Very good memories

Toño

[krispix]

THe first camera I ever used was my dad's old Kodak No.1 Autograph Junior which was current from 1914 to 1927. I was about 4 and was allowed to take a photo of my mum. Don't know where that is now! However....

THe first camera I bought for myself was a 1951 Voigtlander Bessa II, a folding camera with a coupled rangefinder. It took 12 exposures on 120 film. After a while I traded that for a Voigtlander Vito IIa, a35mm folding camera and after that a 1952 Braun Paxette with an extinction light meter. Talk about high tech! It was a long time before I got a 'real' lightmeter, for some time I used a Johnson's Exposure Calculater, somewhat like a circular slide rule. I still have that calculater in my collection somewhere (I think).

This has got me thinking back to one of my early cameras which may have been a Voigtlander Vito. Was this the one where the 35mm film was loose wound and went from one cassette to another, then you put the empty cassette on the receiving side?

[Tygart]

My very first camera? I can't really remember other then it took the 110 film, the camera was the thin one that can go in your pocket, kind of like acsky. I was 5 on a trip to Disney Land, No I don't have any of those photos :-).

As for being interested in photography My fist Camera was a Sony Cybershot, F717, t was kind of a present after moving From Seattle To Spokane., the shutter lag drove me nuts.

[Inkanyezi]

This has got me thinking back to one of my early cameras which may have been a Voigtlander Vito. Was this the one where the 35mm film was loose wound and went from one cassette to another, then you put the empty cassette on the receiving side?

Nope, must have been Agfa Karat or Rapid if the film goes loosely rolled into another cassette just like the one it comes from. Some of the older ones, Karat, were rather advanced, and the Rapid was akin to the Instamatic. Voigtländer did not make cameras for the Agfa cassette afaik, although they made 126 cameras.

Post edit: I see that I was wrong. There was a Vitoret Rapid from Voigtländer

Here's my first camera that my dad gave me in 1960. It is the original Olympus Pen, and it takes 72 pictures on 135 film. It still works and the lens is crisp but the viewfinder is dim, probably microorganism growth: