How did you start ?

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Sidney77

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This may have be asked a thousand times before, but I was wondering how you got into photography ?
I never really thought much of it until my wifeet bought a bridge camera for our holiday about 5yrs ago and could not taking a good picture with it, so she got in a huff and told me that I should take the photos.
I turns out that I had a good natural eye for it. So I just started slowly then I got a Dslr about 3yrs ago and kept learning from then on.
 
I decided that I was spending way too much time sitting behind my computer and decided to take up strolling around the countryside instead. To give me some incentive to keep going, I spent a fair bit of cash on a DSLR which I wasn't prepared to let gather dust on the shelf and be a waste of money. I also found that reading up on the local history and myths of the places I walked to around Sussex complimented the experience.
 
I always enjoyed playing with the family camera. I clearly remember using an old 110 (flip over handle) as a kid in the 1970s.

As part of a secondary school project we were let loose into the neighbourhood with 'proper' 35mm SLR cameras and I think that was when I got the bug.

Fast forward to the late 80s and I was doing a lot of photography and darkroom stuff at college and that was something I really enjoyed but sadly couldn't afford to continue as a hobby once I left.

The bug returned in the mid 90s when I splashed out on my own SLR gear but i was frustrated by having to rely on labs to develop prints.

When digital came along it didn't really grab me as the quality was fairly crap by comparison.

The turning point for me was in the early 2000s when it became affordable to get a digital camera and home pp that compared.

In all honesty I'm probably more interested in the subject (wildlife and landscapes) than the actual photography these days but when my mojo is ripe I still like to get out there.
 
Dad was a professional (mainly product and news) so there were always cameras around and of course they got used as toys! To dissuade me from playing with Daddy's tools, a plastic 35mm compact was procured but after a few "accidental" back openings by a younger sibling(...), it was decided that a 110 cassette camera would be a better idea. No idea what came back from that, as a 9/10 year old, my attention span had been surpassed several times over by the time the prints came back! Several years later, the bug bit properly since I had access to a fully kitted out B&W darkroom and Dad had given up the photography for more profitable work so I had the loan of some of his hobby kit until I could afford a body and some lenses of my own. After some years of dropping in and out of the hobby as funds and time allowed, I fell back in heavily about 20 years ago when I wanted to get better photos from holidays than compacts allowed.
Like Phil, I didn't get into digital until at least 3MP was affordable (for a compact) and stayed with film until the D70 dropped to well under a grand! Now got pretty much all I want and as an amateur, that's several grand's worth of kit more than I really NEED! Often go for weeks without taking even a snap but still enjoy it when the mood takes me.
 
I was given a Halina 110 when I was about 10 and it's been downhill ever since. I still have the print of the first photo of the first roll of film I shot.
 
May father had a (Fuji, I think) half frame camera and aged about 7, I really wanted to try taking pictures too. My parents (poor as anything) obtained something that was 'empire made' and I was allowed about 3 rolls before it became too expensive. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. :p

My first SLR came along because the Cosmic Symbol I owned from the late 70s was just a bad camera (unless you liked fuzzy photos) and I wanted something more capable.
 
When i had a Zenith given as a gift from parents, that got me interested. Then i bought an AE1-Program. Had a few DSLR's over the years. Now i use my mobile phone!!! But, getting the urge to get a DSLR again!
 
I was given a Box Brownie when I went on a school trip to London, probably around 1965 I had a 12 exposure film, but only one turned out, a picture of HMS Belfast.
Then I was hooked. I used my Dads Leica's when I could handle them, then through a range of cameras from Zorki, Fed and Zenits till I could afford my first SLR, a Canon.
First Digital camera was a Casio QV10 around 1/3 of a megapixel, bought in 1995, shortly after we had a Japanese student come to stay with us using her own digital camera.
 
Dad always had a Rollei TLR around when I was a kid - a 'cord and later he upgraded to a 'flex.

I got a Kodak 110 Instamatic when I was 9 or so and a couple of years later I wanted something better for my birthday. I was given a second hand Praktica Nova 1 SLR with a 50mm f/2.8 Domiplan lens and a Vivitar light meter. Heavy and industrial in the way that only Communist East Germany could make cameras in the late 1960s, but it was a 'proper' camera.

Just about then, my mum was a journalist on a local paper and we took in a lodger. Jon Bond was a brilliant young photographer just out of college taken on to the paper's staff as a trainee (he went on to be a staff photographer at The Sun in 1989 and is still there). Jon was an inspiration. He had the eye for a good shot and the wherewithal to turn routine assignments into great pictures. A genuinely nice guy, he took the time to explain to the 12 year me old how he put his pictures together. He also introduced me to the basic processing of black and white film and I got the bug.

He used a Canon A-1, which was cutting edge kit right at the end of the 70s and light years ahead of my Nova 1. I couldn't afford one, but not long after later I could scrape the money together for an AV-1 with a built-in meter and a 'fast' (compared to the Domiplan) FD 50mm f/1.8. Thus began my love affair FD lenses and I'm still using them today on a Sony A7.
 
I can't remember exactly why I got my first camera. I can't remember if it was my choice or if my parents asked me if I wanted one but at the age of ten I got a Kodak Instamatic from Boots and I've been taking pictures ever since. At first I took pictures to capture what I was seeing but one day a happy accident occurred when I took a picture of one of my sisters stroking a horse. The sun was behind them and when the film came back I saw that they were in almost silhouette and I thought "WoW" and that's when the thought that I could create a different look hit me and I realised that I didn't have to take what were in effect record shots, I could take a different picture.

I stuck with very simple cameras for years before getting my first SLR. In those days I was working very hard and on good money and at some point I decided to buy a new toy every month. I got the TV and the HiFi etc and then one month it was new camera time and I got a Nikon SLR. I stayed with that for a long time as other cameras came and went and I stayed with film as digital came along until I had problems with the quality I was getting back and I decided (rightly or wrongly) that they must have cut costs to compete with digital and that's why the quality had nosedived so in anger and frustration I went digital.

I still have my Kodak but I haven't used it for decades and I still have that picture of my sister and the horse. It still is one of my favourite pictures.
 
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I was given my grandmother's Box Brownie in 1962 (when I was 7 years old) when I was visiting family in Dublin during the summer school holiday.

Money was tight so I waa told that I would only get the single roll of film for the 3 weeks we were there!

The following year was a big improvement - I got 2 rolls of film! It was the first time I saw the 2 new Bristol built Guinness boats berthed on the River Liffey - bang went a whole roll of film. I knew I was getting old when I saw them go many years later.

I was hooked after those early yesrs and photography has been part of my life ever since.

My journey to grown up camera gear was when I got a Zenit B, then Zenit E!

I have used a variety of kit in my work but those early days were very special.

Whilst digital is my main go to, I still enjoy the discipline of film (35mm and 120).

Steve
 
I had a brownie 127 when I was 6. I have taken pictures ever since. When I was older I had a zenith B and rolli. I went on to an Olympus om2 and then various smaller cameras. I came back to dslrs 6 years ago now with a 7d2 still taking pictures
 
I too was given a Kodak Brownie 127 as a young boy, and used to develop the B&W film in my fathers darkroom in the late 50's. Unlike some I used to love the smell of fixer. Then progressed to a Kodak Twin 20, a Halina 35mm, various Practica's, then for some time Olympus kit. An OM1, OM1n and OM2. First using a Vivitar Series 1 varifocal 35-85, Vivitar Series 1 70-210 and a Vivitar Series 1 200mm F3, later changing to all Zuiko primes. Added a new Yashicamat 124G to the kit. Used a Beseler 23c enlarger for some time. Later changed to 2 x Canon T90's and the enlarger was replaced by a Polaroid Sprint Scan 35 and Photoshop. Added a Mamiya C220 and lenses (still have) and a Toyo 45a 5x5, with 65mm, 90mm, 150mm, 135mm, 210mm and 360mm lenses (still have), and an Epson flat bed scanner for 6x6 and 4x5 negs. Bought a Sony DSC-R1 to try digital (still have), then replaced with a Nikon D7100. Now looking to upgrading soon to a Nikon D750 and a few new lenses.

It's surprising the old kit you accumulate over the years. Will likely buy some new film to check out the 4x5 kit and move it on, it hasn't been used for a few years now, although I regularly cock and fire the lens shutters.

It's also interesting how your style of photography changes over the years, there's still areas I haven't explored in depth.
 
Taking family photos with a box camera my nan gave me when I was six. I still have them
IMG_8702.jpg
 
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Early years my main influence was my grandad.

But later on in life a good friend off here. We both like to think we have a good eye for it. :)
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I started by using my Dad's Kodak Instamatic when I was about 7 or 8. It was always loaded with Kodachrome slide film back then and waiting for that little yellow envelope coming through the letterbox about a week later was unbearable. The camera only had 2 settings - sunny and cloudy but it was amazing how many of the slides were decently exposed. At about 14, l was given a Russian Cosmic 35, which cost less than £5. It din't have an exposure meter so I aquired one of those too. If nothing else it was a great camera for learning about the relationships between, shutter speed, aperture and film speed and their effects on the final picture.

I then progressed to SLR with acouple of Prakticas, a Yahica FX and a series of Olympus and Nikon film cameras.

Working as a pro from the late 70s to mid 90s I had the privilege of using quite a few different 120 roll film cameras as well as a few makes of 5"x4" ones.
 
Like a good number here, I started when I was about ten with a Brownie 127, progressed from that to an Instamatic 100 then my father's cast-off Retinette 1b when he got his first Canon SLR. I got my first SLR, a Zenith E, for my 18th birthday, forty-five years ago.
 
Another one who started with the old cassette instamatic - a present when I was 8 or 9. I remember getting a passable photo of someone's dog from my first role of film and I was hooked. It was black and white at first as colour film was expensive - and crap! I was lent a 'proper' camera a couple of times. This was before the age of the plastic, light sealed film cartridge, when you had to change the film in the near dark. At least once I managed not to load it properly and a blank film came back. I graduated to an SLR years later when I could finally afford it. I nearly gave up eventually when digital was beginning to take hold, I was finding manual focussing a challenge and my prints never came back as I thought they should. I found out afterwards that when the shop took their film processing/printing in house rather than using a lab they were using machines with 'auto enhancement'. I already had access to a dSLR for astrophotography and had a digital 'point and shoot. for when I didn't want to carry the weight of the SLR. I had 'my' dSLR as a present 6 years ago and the bug bit again big time. I'm still a bit rubbish at it though.
 
My mum let me play with a family Box Brownie when I was 8 or 9. It never had a film in it but I swanned around the neighbourhood, framing shots, and being a 'pretend' photographer. I abandoned my dollies:D! As I'd shown an interest, mum bought me a Kodak Instamatic for my 11th birthday. I can still picture the mainly yellow box and the flash cubes inside. I was thrilled! I used my pocket money to get the pics developed. This was the start of the slippery slope...;)

P.S. Nice thread!:ty:, Sidney77!
 
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My uncle bought me a Kodak Advantix camera when I was about 10 (film but had 3 different photo formats, inc panaroma) enjoyed using this so I bought myself a Fuji S5700 after saving up around the age of 16, then when I was 18/19 came across a limited amount only deal when shopping in Bluewater for a Canon 1000d, put off buying there and then but snuck up the next day to pick one up!

I haven't been without a camera since!
 
When I was young, we borrowed a box camera when we went on holiday, and I was allowed to make an exposure. I was pleased that my photo (of a hedge) was the only one of the set that had a level horizon. Later, my mother bought me a plastic camera that used (I suspect) 828 film from Woolworths and I really got into taking photos. I would have been around 7 or 8 at the time, because I can recall using it in 1957. A TV program that showed how to make contact prints got me started on that side of of things, and I was making prints and developing films while still at primary school. My first enlarger came in 1961.

I graduated from the small camera to a 6x9 (in modern terms) box camera, then to a Kodak Brownie 6x6 (I still have both). Cheaper film moved me to 35mm, then in 1965 an Exa IIB with 50mm f/2.8 Domiplan lens. After that, and Exakta Varex IIB in 1967 which suffered from shutter failure in the 1970s and was replaced by an OM1. An OM2 and OM4 were added in 1977 and 1984.

I was persuaded by my wife to eventually try medium format, and we went out and compared cameras in a used camera dealers, and came away with a Mamiya RB67. Later an RZ67 was added. Then a dealer in Bath where I popped in to buy film in the course of conversation suggested large format as offering even better quality. An overnight to consider this, and I started on the large format trail. I'm still only on 5x4, but am increasingly wondering about moving to a more serious size like 10x8...
 
My parents used to take black and white pictures, developing and printing them at home. When I was 7 or 8, I could clamber up into the loft so sat up there with Dad with the safe light on messing about with the enlarger etc.

I was given an Agfa Sillette II in about '67 and used that for a few years until I got a Zenit E and a couple of Pentacon lenses.

In August 1979 I quit smoking (not smoked since) so that I could save up for a Pentax ME Super, which I bought in early 1980 (got stolen whilst on holiday in 81). Got another ME Super with the insurance money and used that (and a P30n) until it finally died in 2002. Still have it, may or may not get it fixed one day. Loved that camera.

Persisted with the P30n until 2006 when I got a Canon EOS 20D (still going strong) though I also used a Fujifilm Finepix 2800 from 2002 until I got the Canon. Got an EOS 50D in 2009, that suffered shutter failure in March this year. So now have a 7DII..
 
I used to listen to The Smiths on my Sony Walkman, a mate, bit of a spoilt rich kid, had a Nikon SLR and offered to swap, I did ....

A Nikon FE plus nifty 50, no user manual but it came with a little Kodak pocket book on how to take proper pictures.
 
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A school friend got me into it. My first camera was a Pentacon FM, which was a variant of the first pentaprism SLR, the Contax S. I was amazed at how many doors being able to take pictures opened in the 'sixties and it got me places most people never see.

I've still got some pictures from back then, like this shot that was part of my 'O' level portfolio, which got me a grade 1...

11857699033_c61ecd1148_b.jpg
 
The first camera I remember using was a Kodak box in the early 70s, then I borrowed my sisters 110 to go to my first gig (the pictures were as good as you'd guess). In the early 80s I decided that as I couldn't play an instrument, this was the next coolest thing, so I bought a Praktica from Argos.

From there I started shooting semi pro, moved to a borrowed Canon AE1p and then to a Chinon, then Bronica, a short spell as a full time pro led to me giving up for a bit.

It was the early 2000s before I bit the bullet to play with those new fangled AF cameras, shortly after that I moved to digital.
 
I think I started with a Kodak 126 (?) then a 110 as a boy. About the age of 17 I bought my first proper camera - a Fujica STX1 iirc. Also had an 80-200 lens for it as well. Used it for many years, then discovered motorcycles so no money for new camera stuff.
First digi experience was a disaster of a bridge camera,Fuji s5500 I think. Shutter lag in the league of weeks....
Then I finally bought a real DSLR....A BRAND new D70S with 18-70 lens. Fell in love with it and togging all over again. Few years later and a D200 replaced the D70S along with a Nikkor 70-300 to oust the poor Sigma APO equivalent.
Now using a D300 and have shot more this year than I ever have before.
Using the TP 52 is making me think very differently about my photography, and Im loving it even more.
 
I bought a 1930s folding Agfa with a broken viewfinder in a junk shop because I was too shy to talk to the pretty young lass who worked in there - talking to her was the sole reason for me being in there. O lost innocent youth!

I discovered that this camera would produce art! 45 years later, I am still amazed by that idea.
 
A kodak 127 (version 2 by the looks of things) was my first camera, given to me by grandparents. This would have been in the mid 70s, so almost an antique then!
I recall kodak 110 instamatics as I grew up too.
The first serious camera I used was a Praktica SLR in the mid / late 80s which I used to take photos of the RAC rally each year. Fully manual with an in-built light meter and 400 ASA film. A joy to use with the split prism manual focus.

My first digital was a Vivitar, I cannot recall the model, but it was in the mid 90s, and had a huge resolution of 320x240, could manage 27 shots on the internal memory, but the AA batteries it required would need replacement before the 27 shots were all taken. Still, I was the only person I knew who had a digital camera!
This was replaced in 1999 by a kodak DC240, what a huge jump to 1.3mp I still recall paying around £115 for a 16mb CF in 2000 (I still have it somewhere).
 
My uncle gave me his Yashica Electro 35 and six rolls of B&W film when he splashed out on a Hasselblad in around 1969.
 
I bought a Cosina CSM back in the 80's,got into photography,but still didn't know what genre I wanted to do. Eventually I used to bring the camera fishing with me to take snap's of the ones that didn't get away. Eventually the fishing hobby led to just loving nature itself, and the hours of sitting still waiting ,has given me the patience to sit for hours in a hide waiting for the shot . What shot ,you may ask? I don't even have that answer myself.
 
It was skating that got me into photography, I used to rollerblade and used cheap digital cameras up until I splashed out on my own DSLR.

Bought the Sony A200 I believe it was and used that along with a video camcorder to film and photograph skating. Decided to combine them both and invested in a Canon 60D maybe 6 years back.

Interest did fade in using the camera once I stopped skating due to injury, but I'm getting back into it and finding that my interests now lie in the photography aspect of it rather than the video.

Mostly photographing travel and just daily life/street photos at the moment, but interested in getting more experience in different areas.
 
I've always wanted to get in to photography since my teens, but it wasn't until I started going to horse shows that my girlfriend was competing in that I decided to actually buy a camera. I needed something to do!
Ever since then I've heavily gotten in to macro but enjoy snapping anything and everything.
 
I inherited a Minolta X-700 when I was a teen and whilst I had always been interested in photography, it was the first camera that I started to really get involved with and the one that while at Uni made me want to understand the process more - so much so that I took a photography module as part of my degree (wish I'd paid more attention now!).

Fast forward to now and I am shooting the Fuji X-T10 - the two may be 35 years apart in terms of tech (the Minolta was built in the year I was born!), but I love that the form & function are so similar and not to mention they look sexy as hell! :)

My Gear by Ash Smith, on Flickr

Might have to slap a roll of Acros in the X-700 next time I'm out shooting and try out that 50mm on the streets :)
 
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I was interested in photography fro a long time, but never had the money to get a 'serious' camera.
I inherited my grandfathers Zeiss Ikon Contiflex when he died, but after a few trial rolls of film (working only from the old camera manual, so not really knowing what I was doing - this was long before the internet!) I (with hindsight rather foolishly) let it just sit unused as the results were so hit and miss.
Then came digital, and an upturn in my income, and I was able to purchase an early bridge camera (not that it was called that then), and became more interested, but DSLR prices were still well above my price bracket.
Skip forward several years and a few years after getting married, my wife decided we needed a better camera for her brothers wedding, and after a bit of research I found the Sony A200 was within budget, and would even leave me enough to pick up a s/h Minolta 50 f/1.7 for low light in the church :)

I soon found I was enjoying photography, but this was to prove a lot more expensive in the long run, as GAS quickly took hold... :D
 
I had a small red plastic camera as a child - I remember taking photos with it at Crystal Park, of the concrete dinosaurs. Did a short course while at college later, using a Praktica SLR, that covered the basics, plus developing and printing. That was it, I was hooked!
 
Always enjoyed taking photos, earliest camera I remember was the one my mum had that took tiny little photos, got a feeling it was something like 828 film (if there is such a thing)

Nothing particular got me started, just always seem to have had a camera around the place

Had various Instamatics, a disc camera then my girlfriend at the time bought me an Olympic AF-1 35mm which I still have. First digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 3100, took literally thousand of photos with that, can't fault it in any way.

Been through a few others since then, but seem to have settled with the Fuji X series, that's it now I've retired and cash is a bit more limited.
 
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I saved up for a Praktika LB2 when I was at school. And then photography consumed me. I read every book in the school library. Spent all my time with a camera or in the darkroom.
I went on to try every type of film and processing. I joined 3 camera clubs and subscribed to several magazines. I used the Olympus OM system. I travelled to Photokina. I worked part-time for several photographers and just lived photography.
 
I was around my dad's and asked if he still had my first camera.
Seems it was a Kodak Brownie Cresta, not a Brownie 127, but he did still have it.

So, here in all it's plastic glory is my Brownie Cresta :)
BrownieCresta.jpg
 
Started seriously back in the 60's with a chinon SLR from Dixons ,doing my own processing in a home darkroom. .gradually upgraded through lots of different cameras and lenses including a very large mamiya c330 interchangeable twin lens reflex ,,life and family matters led to the hobby going on a back burner till around twenty years ago when I bought a canon slr ,a couple of years before digital took off ,when it did I my then teenage son Also liked the idea of digital images and I gradually upgraded via various small mp camera upgrades and then bridge cameras ,eventually aquring a Sony f828 which at the time was state of the art at 8mp . This then led to my first DSLR a Nikon d60 that's when life got complicated and my pockets gradually got lighter even more so around 7 years ago when I got hooked on wildlife photography and long lenses :canon::pint::runaway:
 
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