For its 25th anniversary, DP Review asked staff what was their first camera.

[usonian]

Youngsters!!

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9915505789/25-years-of-dpreview-our-editors-first-cameras

And they also asked readers. There were 405 comments at last count.

My first --- that I could remember! --- was a Fujica Half, circa 1970.



I *may have* used the family Brownie Reflex, but that's lost in my memory bank.



I'll spare you the camera history, just to say that my best photos until recently were probably the ones taken with one of many 2 1/4 square cameras in Vermont at foliage time. I settled on the Swedish one.

I used a Coolpix P510 for about a decade and it accounts for most of my photos. 24-1000mm got the job done.
Lately, I have gone quite crazy with the Nikon Z5.

So, what was your first camera?
Your favorite?

(not to interfere with the contest, of course)

[Walleye]

1. My favorite camera was a Leica M4

[usonian]

3. Yes, I so wanted a Leica M4

but I loved macro photography from the outset, so I jumped from the Fujica to a Nikkormat with the 55 mm. macro/normal lens.

To do so with a Leica would have required a Visoflex reflex housing and a 65 mm. Elmar lens, making it an SLR.

So I got the SLR.

The M4 must have been fun!

[Walleye]

11. Yes, the Leica had it's limitations. I also had a Nikon F for telephoto lenses

I was working for a small newspaper at the time, and I still remember, I paid $750 for it new with an F2-35mm Leitz lens. It was about 1968

[usonian]

12. Summicron f/2. Spectacular lens.

I still have an old Leica lens brochure from 1969.

That said, the Nikkor 35mm. f/2 was and is pretty wonderful as well.

Here's the "centerfold" for the lens from that brochure.

[elleng]

2. Brownie!

THE KODAK BROWNIE CAMERA: THE CAMERA THAT BROUGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE MASSES

https://www.artisanobscura.com/photographyblog/2024/1/19/the-kodak-brownie-camera-the-camera-that-brought-photography-to-the-masses

[usonian]

5. Oh, but so many old family photos are badly exposed.

I scanned the photos and have been processing them to restore the "original" scenes.

[elleng]

10. Mine are MISSING, as they're OLD and subjected to many moves.

Did get some GREAT ones, from ?Jr. High age trip to the west; Jenny Lake, for one!

[Arne]

4. I could never get over the Polaroid.

Spits it out and wave it around presto, there's a picture.
They may be faded after time but many of ours are
still ok.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

6. My first camera was the premium I chose from those I was eligible for for selling enough

Tickets to the car raffle my then church did every year. I was probably in the 2nd grade so I don't remember much else about it except it must have been a cheap piece of crap.

My all-time favorite camera was my first 135mm camera, a small point and shoot Olympus I got in 1981.

[Ocelot II]

7. I had a Brownie and an Instamatic but my first " real " camera

was an Olympus OM1.

[mitch96]

8. Mine was a used Miranda. Can't remember what model but it did what I wanted for that teen age kid..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_Camera_Company

[HAB911]

9. First was a Minolta SRT101

on the DMZ, in and around Panmunjom, wore it out in 3 years and graduated to the Nikon F2