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What first got you started?
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Like many others I was influenced by older family members with cameras. Myself started off with a Boots branded 110 cartridge camera !! This must’ve been the best part of 25 years ago now…(sits down heavily…)
After shooting everything in sight with that I was thrilled to get a Pentax P30n SLR one Christmas and that kept me going through college (City & Guilds Photography) and onwards only to slowly fall out of favour due to the lack of portability etc.
Ended up selling all the kit in about 2003 and using the proceeds to jump on the digital bandwagon, with a Canon IXUS V3 compact (I know going from an SLR to a compact isn’t the normal route) which then got me more and more into actually taking pictures which the SLR kit under the bed didn’t ….
After it finally gave up the ghost a few years later, I invested in the D70s I now have and love ! Oh how I still wish I had my Pentax as well though…
quick edit – thanks to wikipedia have now found this picture of my first camera –
This was my first camera that was mine, all mine:
It cost me £35 at the time. Now considering I was working after school in a supermarket for £1/hr this was a huge investment…but I did get a free film with it so that wasn’t too bad. It was one of the first cameras with a built in flash. Around 1985 it was.
Alan.
Hanimex were a great camera, I had a bright red one that I bought in Jersey for the princely
sum of £9.00 still have it!shutterbug wrote:
Hanimex were a great camera, I had a bright red one that I bought in Jersey for the princely
sum of £9.00 still have it!Ah, probably a Chinese knock-off! :)
Alan.
Prompted by posts by PeteW and irishwonkafan I searched the web to
see if I could find a picture of my first “all mine” camera.I suppose it was the early ’80’s and my uncle was working as a freelance.
I went with him and a journalist to an interview for an article in the newly reformed Sunday Tribune.
No laughing down the back at the next bit!
The darkroom just blew my mind. Watching the images appear………..
I was hooked.
The rest is history.1988 i went to do a visual communcatins course when I was 18 and knew everything abuot life, It had a photography bit and I fluked taking great pictures which our lecturer gave me positive attention which was really helpful. and I never kicked off again until 2005 where i started painting again and wanted to take pictures of my art. I got given a point and shoot, shot everything and anything, learnt PS from magazines a year after that.
bought a 2nd d50 after a year with the p&s and so on yad yada yada
and here we are…Hated photography for ages and ages because my dad used to have one of the old Nikon film SLRs from about 1980 that he’d force us to pose in front of for up to 20 minutes a shot… :D I got so bored of looking at the monuments we visited while he twiddled with every setting on the camera that I never wanted to see them again in the pictures.
Took me 16 years to get over it, lol, then went and got a tiny little toy Leica replica (made by Minox/Minoctar). 3,2mp, 40 image memory, no flash, no screen, no zoom, focus switch from 1m to infinity only and took about 10 seconds to capture each frame, but it was definitely a conversational piece! It was about half the size of my palm. In some ways it was a good starter because it forced me to stand still and judge every shot carefully (you couldn’t take more pictures once it was full until you connected it to a PC and downloaded them off it). It did have a working viewfinder though :) Still have it:
Then went on to a Fujifilm compact, and a Kodak superzoom bridge which took amazing photos but was just too slow, so I got my D5000 a few weeks ago, and haven’t looked back :)
Long long ago…… My parents had a box brownie which I loved to play with as a kid. Then being brought to Annie Brophy (Professional) to have my comunion photos taken sort of got the interest going. A long time afterwards I decided to buy a slr (after using loads of disposables) & that’s when my interest started to grow. After I married, I decided to take over the small bedroom & turn it into a darkroom. I began developing both colour & B&W for a while, but then the recession hit (not this one) and I sold everything. This was the last I saw of photography until last year, when I went out & got my first dslr. I haven’t managed to get good at it yet, but some day I might. :D :D
Great thread & some interesting stories. Well done.Seems quite a few started off in film….had a break….came back and got into digital :D
Love that little mini Leica, my sister has a tiny little film camera that is about 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches with
tiniest little film ever……works too :)I have never been without a camera for as long as I can remember but would maybe be picked up for holidays and
family get togethers and then forgotten for months, but since digital I very rarely go anywhere without a camera,
always have the cybershot in the pocket or handbag or will have my a700 and a couple of lenses with me.I couldnt imagine being without now, and can honestly say there isnt a day goes by when I dont either take a
photo or think “that would make a nice photo” I think photography has increased my awareness of people, places
and all manner of objects around me……..yep a fantastic hobby :)Thanks for all the wonderful stories and replies must say I am enjoying them all. :)
shutterbug wrote:
I think photography has increased my awareness of people, places
and all manner of objects around meI agree, it has made me slow down and appreciate things a lot more.
I’m always surprised to read about people who had film SLRs back in the day and then “upgrade” to digital point n’shoots in the digital era. Seems seems strange. It’s not just in this post I’ve heard of people doing it.
My story isn’t that interesting really.
When I first got a phone with a camera on it around early 2004 I really loved it. The quality was rubbish and the resolution was 352×288 (0.1 megapixels, thank you very much). But I loved being able to capture a moment and see it instantly. I loved the communication factor too – that you could send someone an image around the world pretty much instantaneously.
Nevertheless when I went to China for a month I brought my phone obviously and two disposable cameras. I still find it shocking that I figured my disposable cameras were going to be sufficient for images of the Great Wall and the Forbidden caity. It’s pretty funny considering I can’t go away for a weekend now without at least two lenses. If I was going to China now I’d be bringing about 6 KGs of gear not two disposables.
Anyway, one of the people I met in China was going to buy a digital point and shoot and we went along. I liked the technology and all so while she was asking all her questions (through an interpret) about the camera I was just listening and looking at other cameras. Then when she was going to buy the one she’d been examining I said, “ah yeah, sure I’ll take one of those things too”.
She was getting a Nikon Coolpix 5100 maybe, but they’d only one of them available so I had to get the 4100, a four megapixel version but basically the same otherwise. I didn’t really care as I figured both were fine for 6x4s.
Anyway, after turning into a very “snaphappy” person over the next couple of weeks in China and taking more pictures than the average person would my enjoyment of photography grew and grew. I went on holidays again to France a few months after my return from China and took many more pictures, making some attempts at street photography etc.
I really grew to love photography and read a small bit about it but was still in a snapshot type of category.
After about 18 months of having that camera it was stolen in a house burglary. I was going travelling so felt I had to replace it. Encouraged by my girlfriend I decided to go for an SLR as I enjoyed photography so much. I picked up a Nikon D50 – going for Nikon as it was what I’d used before – good old fashioned blind brand loyalty. The guy in the shop was trying to push Olympus as he used them himself.
I guess that’s it. My photography knowledge improved more thanks to buying a Nikon D200* and Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure”.
Alan
*A D200 has more intuitive controls over Aperture and Shutter Speed when in manual mode and more accessible controls over metering. Both these factors helped my come to grips with photographic technicalities a bit quicker.
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