How did you start?

[Grandpa Ron]

In the 1950's I was given a brownie camera in grade school. 127 format and I think 8 shots per roll with no flash. Almost all black and white.

In high school I bought a twin lens reflex in 127 format and shot hundreds of 2x2 "super slides". Even more slides after I was married with kids.

I moved to digital in the late 1990's with a mighty 3.2 mpg. Olympus and I recently bought a Canon.

I still play with all on them plus a restored 1910 Seneca 4x5 view camera. My interest varies with the time of year fall and winter are my favorite times of the year.

 

[Michael Smith 12]

My dad used to have the Canon EOS 1000 if anyone remembers. I remember him using it a lot back home. Sadly, he sold it off a long while back. I would really like to use an old camera and see how it holds up with today's devices.

 

[photoflyer]

Canon EOS 1000

There's one on eBay for $50.... you'll spend more on film. Of course you will need a lens.

 

[dennybeall]

My dad was a News photographer in Washington DC after returning from WWII where he was a Marine Photographer. My first standup baby photo was me and a Speed Graphic 4X5.
Much time spent in the darkroom at the paper. Then school and Yearbook Photographer while doing freelance work - mostly damage shots for insurance companies. Military service then got a job quicker than expected and that lasted 33 years so photography only part time with a few weddings and some models and such. More jobs - more moves - part-time photo work till now Retired and playing with cameras and Photoshop.........................

 

[Michael Smith 12]

Canon EOS 1000

There's one on eBay for $50.... you'll spend more on film. Of course you will need a lens.

Hey Mike thanks for the info.
I dont think there's international shipping for this. Anyways will have a look. Cheers!

 

[DanOstergren]

An ex boyfriend of mine was a photographer, and one day back in 2007 he set up some lights in his garage and loaded a roll of rare black and white film that he won in a contest into his camera, and we took portraits of each other. The next day we took it into the city and took portraits of each other using natural light, and over the following month we slowly clicked through the remaining exposures on the film until there were no more; the entire experience was kind of romantic to be honest. He mailed the film to an out of state lab to have it developed, and it came back with prints as well as digital files on a disc, which I took into Photoshop (CS2) and practiced retouching on them. After that entire experience I was hooked, and got my own camera shortly after.

 

[paigew]

As a kid I spent all my money on one time use disposable cameras. I took pics of everything! Not much has changed [emoji16] didn’t get a dslr until my son was born, from there I started mastering techniques.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Shoeman]

For me it was to be able to take some Supposedly great pictures of my family to cherish in days to come. I didnt have that growing up, no childhood photos and stuff. So I want to have a positive impact on my children

 

[wfooshee]

I got an Instamatic camera for my birthday somewhere back there, and used it until I was in college. My dad had an SLR, and on seeing my "rich" friends shooting with SLRs at school, I begged and begged for something better than that totally insufficient Hawkeye Instamatic.

I was the oldest of five, and there was no way he was going to set a precedent of that much money for birthday or Christmas, but he had a folding rangefinder he'd replaced some years ago, and handed me that, along with a light meter, explained aperture and shutter speed, told me to shoot Kodachrome because Ektachrome fades and you can't control what the labs do with prints.

Voigtlander Vitessa that he bought new in 1952, and Weston meter. I still have them, and they still work, although I can't speak to the accuracy of the shutter speeds. The long plunger is the film advance. This is frame 16 of my first roll of film through it:

I basically pointed the meter at about seven different areas and averaged it up in my head, ignoring the direct sun. Bracketing didn't even occur to me!

A few years after that I heard a friend of my sister's talking about getting a Canon AE-1 for his birthday, and he had no interest in it whatsoever, didn't want to even try to learn to use it. I had a hundred-dollar bill in my pocket and offered it to him for the camera as a joke. He accepted. Brand new unopened Canon AE-1 with a 50-1.4 for a hunnert bucks. SCORE! I shot with that thing for over ten years. When it started to get weird (the magnet that holds the shutter got weak, so the shutter would release by itself as soon as you wound the film, and one curtain also dragged a bit resulting in a bright vertical area in the frame,) I shopped the new AF cameras that were coming out. Canon had the EOS cameras and Nikon had the N series. I got an n6006, because I liked the fact that it would mount legacy lenses, and I didn't see the sense of buying a focus motor in every lens (Nikon's motor was in the body, which to me, intuitively, made the lenses less expensive.)

Another ten or 15 years goes by, and I've now been through a series of digitals, from a Sony point-and-shoot that needed those stupid memory sticks (and sent the n6006 off to eBay,) to several consecutive Nikon DSLRs (D50, D5000, D7000, and D7200,) all from eBay!

So my actual start was a hand-me-down folding rangefinder and a light meter, a little advice, and a "Good luck!"

 

[CherylL]

My first camera was one that you sent in a few dollars & bubblegum wrappers. Of course it didn't work! Parents then got me a camera maybe this was around age 8. I took a lot of the family photos over the years with point and shoots growing up. And we had a Polaroid too. As an adult again just point and shoot cameras. About 2003 I started video editing by capturing old video VHS & VHS-C. I then got a SD video camera tape based and then 2 high def. I was into motion graphics, video, and slideshows for a long time. About 7 years ago I bought a DSLR and wanted to take better video so I started learning photography. Now, I probably take more photos than video. I appreciate all the help from this forum.

 

[Michael Smith 12]

My first camera was one that you sent in a few dollars & bubblegum wrappers. Of course it didn't work! Parents then got me a camera maybe this was around age 8. I took a lot of the family photos over the years with point and shoots growing up. And we had a Polaroid too. As an adult again just point and shoot cameras. About 2003 I started video editing by capturing old video VHS & VHS-C. I then got a SD video camera tape based and then 2 high def. I was into motion graphics, video, and slideshows for a long time. About 7 years ago I bought a DSLR and wanted to take better video so I started learning photography. Now, I probably take more photos than video. I appreciate all the help from this forum.

Wow!
And yes I completely agree, this forum is excellent.

 

[Michael Smith 12]

I got an Instamatic camera for my birthday somewhere back there, and used it until I was in college. My dad had an SLR, and on seeing my "rich" friends shooting with SLRs at school, I begged and begged for something better than that totally insufficient Hawkeye Instamatic.

I was the oldest of five, and there was no way he was going to set a precedent of that much money for birthday or Christmas, but he had a folding rangefinder he'd replaced some years ago, and handed me that, along with a light meter, explained aperture and shutter speed, told me to shoot Kodachrome because Ektachrome fades and you can't control what the labs do with prints.

Voigtlander Vitessa that he bought new in 1952, and Weston meter. I still have them, and they still work, although I can't speak to the accuracy of the shutter speeds. The long plunger is the film advance. This is frame 16 of my first roll of film through it:

I basically pointed the meter at about seven different areas and averaged it up in my head, ignoring the direct sun. Bracketing didn't even occur to me!

A few years after that I heard a friend of my sister's talking about getting a Canon AE-1 for his birthday, and he had no interest in it whatsoever, didn't want to even try to learn to use it. I had a hundred-dollar bill in my pocket and offered it to him for the camera as a joke. He accepted. Brand new unopened Canon AE-1 with a 50-1.4 for a hunnert bucks. SCORE! I shot with that thing for over ten years. When it started to get weird (the magnet that holds the shutter got weak, so the shutter would release by itself as soon as you wound the film, and one curtain also dragged a bit resulting in a bright vertical area in the frame,) I shopped the new AF cameras that were coming out. Canon had the EOS cameras and Nikon had the N series. I got an n6006, because I liked the fact that it would mount legacy lenses, and I didn't see the sense of buying a focus motor in every lens (Nikon's motor was in the body, which to me, intuitively, made the lenses less expensive.)

Another ten or 15 years goes by, and I've now been through a series of digitals, from a Sony point-and-shoot that needed those stupid memory sticks (and sent the n6006 off to eBay,) to several consecutive Nikon DSLRs (D50, D5000, D7000, and D7200,) all from eBay!

So my actual start was a hand-me-down folding rangefinder and a light meter, a little advice, and a "Good luck!"

This was quite a story & you summed it perfectly in the end

 

[Michael Smith 12]

An ex boyfriend of mine was a photographer, and one day back in 2007 he set up some lights in his garage and loaded a roll of rare black and white film that he won in a contest into his camera, and we took portraits of each other. The next day we took it into the city and took portraits of each other using natural light, and over the following month we slowly clicked through the remaining exposures on the film until there were no more; the entire experience was kind of romantic to be honest. He mailed the film to an out of state lab to have it developed, and it came back with prints as well as digital files on a disc, which I took into Photoshop (CS2) and practiced retouching on them. After that entire experience I was hooked, and got my own camera shortly after.

This is super cute hahaha
Man, it is very inspiring to read everyone's stories

 

[bhop]

My friends and I used disposable cameras in the late 80s to take skate pics, so that's probably what started the interest. When I went to art school in 1992, I enrolled in some photo classes with the traditional Pentax and darkroom and the rest is history from there.. I never went in the pro direction, became a graphic designer instead, but the love of photography has been there ever since.

 

[Adadrian]

My parents and grand parents have always been strong in taking photography’s as memories and after my father passed away it was my job to keep the family memories, and developed a hobby out of it and loved it