First Camera - what kind?

[Roger]

I decided to ask because I was thinking about my growth in photography.

I guess I started with a Disc camera, then used 110 for a short while, then I used my dad's Canon FTb that he used in 'Nam.

There I stayed until I thought APS was the wave of the future, and got a Nikon Pronea 6i. Because the Canon IX was ugly.

Then I learned more about photography, and while I enjoyed the few advantages of APS over 35mm negative film, I moved back to 35mm because of quality, slide film, etc. and got a Canon Elan IIE. The rest is history.

From a disc at the Tower of London to shooting 3 rolls of film during Fantasmic! to the present.

 

[gary]

i can remember my first camera better than my first wife or first car
kodak 110 instamatic, still have it, flash not operational in many years and i don't know if film is available
recieved in 1964 from my paternal grandparents to use at the new york world's fair, it looked so high tech and cool to me at the time, seems like such a small simple box these days
gary

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I can't remember my exact progression but my first camera was a Polaroid with one-time-use flash bulb (the ones with row-configuration), then Kodak P&S with square disposable bulb, Nikon 35mm SLR (manual focus), Minolta 35mm P&S with (IIRC) 35mm lens.

Then Canon Rebel S (the first 35mm Rebel with built-in flash). While owning that camera I toyed around with Olympus Stylus (first generation), a couple of (IIRC) Pentax AF P&S that looks like a tube, Fuji A200 digital camera, Kodak dSLR (major disaster), Canon A80, A95, Fuji A345, Olympus C5050, Olympus C8080WZ, Canon 10D, Canon 20D, and presently 2 Canon 30D and a Canon 5D.

 

[Dan]

I was first exposed to my parents' 35mm slrs. However my first camera was a 110 I got for.. I think it was for some sort of trip my family was going on, possibly an off roading and camping trip in Utah. I still remember the curious film advance mechanism, the slide lever sort of thing that slid back and forth to crank the cartridge forward.
I kind of got tired of it after a while, the quality wasn't fantastic, and I'm just not that into taking pictures for 4x6 prints only. So for a while I stopped shooting. Then I picked up a 35mm SLR at a garage sale for $20, including three lenses and a flash. I ultimately used it in a few photography classes and printed up a ton of full sheet black and white prints. Eventually that camera developed a light leak though, besides which I had no photo lab of my own, and just wasn't as keen going back to printing 4x6s of what I took.
Then I went digital with a Kodak thing.. it was big, curiously rectangular, and gave a new definition to the term "shutter lag". In retrospect I think I was too early into the market, cameras got better and cheaper fairly quickly after that. But I waited a loooong time before upgrading, going next to a Canon Digital Rebel. Which was light years ahead. From THEN on I call myself a photographer, I learned a lot more than I ever knew before, even with the 35mm SLR. I had no idea that lenses tend to be sharper when stopped down a little, or that very small apertures can actually make image quality worse, or that so much depended upon the quality of a lens.
It can be argued that having to do the whole film development process develops discipline or that the difficulty makes the accomplishments stronger.. but even through all those classes I never knew half the things I've picked up just reading forums now. Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that the classes were more about the art, which I have perhaps a limited ability to appreciate. But I've learned a great deal more about the technical aspects of photography now, and that's what I look back and realize I was totally missing out on.
The Digital Rebel was starting to slow me down because of its somewhat clumsy method of only writing to the memory card when you're not taking or composing a picture (that is when the shutter button isn't even half pressed), and around that time the 30D came out, and I was dazzled by its huge buffer and fast burst rate. I made the upgrade, and here I am. Actually still posting more D-reb pics than 30D, because I haven't had the 30d long enough to build up an equal collection.