Nostalgia & History > What cameras were you using as teens?

All the posts below with shots from our teens got me wondering about what kinds of rigs everyone was using. I'm seeing such a wide variety of aspect ratios, film grains, overall looks, etc. The differences in photo quality from many high end digital cameras (and even the best 35mm SLRs) can be, at times, fairly subtle, but the older film cameras often gave wildly different looks from one another.

Until I was 34, I had owned about 6 different cameras (including my very first camera, a pinhole I built from an oatmeal can when I was 5), but really only used 3 of them for train shots. I still own them, although two are in storage. I dug up some photos from the internet illustrating them.

1 - My first "real" camera was a Kodak Baby Brownie that shot 126. Somewhere, I have some black and white shots of SP commutes at the San Jose station and probably some Santa Fe in Arizona with this one.

2 - I graduated to a Zeiss Ikon Contina when I was about 9 or 10. In a thread below I posted a shot of Feather River Short Line 8 back in 1987. I took that with the Zeiss.

3 - I saved my money for a whole year to buy a Canon EOS 620 in the spring of 1988 (I was 17). Took hundreds of slides with that rig until I got a secondhand Canon Digital Rebel about 6 years ago. I still use the 620 for 3D photos. I never even owned a car more expensive than that camera until 2006.

I did have a Kodak 110 that I probably shot some trains with, and a Kodak Pony that was my back-up for the Zeiss and also took a few train shots. Had to learn to use a light meter to work the Pony, so I prefered the Zeiss (along with the Zeiss having better optics). Still have that, too.

So, share, folks. What were you shooting with back in "the day"?


Z



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/10 11:17 by zephyrus.

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So clean. Are you sure these are real railfan cameras?

I had fun and got a few decent pix with my trusty Brownie Starmatic (1963 and Instamatic (1965). The Instamatic had a slight edge in dim light and freezing motion. Kurt.

Kodak Instamatic 126. Don't have a picture of the camera, but here's a photo taken with it.

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Love those bell bottoms. Might you have been a teen in the 70s?

My teen camera was an Argus C-3.

My first was a Kodak Duaflex II that was a mid-1950s vintage - I got it and 10 rolls of B&W 620 film as a Christmas present when I was 10; had it up until I was 13. Then Dad handed down his 35mm rangefinder Clarus MS-35 along with his Weston light meter. Dad taught me the basics of photography with that camera (he was a serious amateur and taught photography at Cal Berkeley for a couple of years as a graduate student). After that was stolen during a vacation in Texas (lost a bunch of shots of Santa Fe trains and stations in south Texas), I bought a Nikkormat FT-3 at age 16 that I used up through my college years. I still have it and a Nikon FM-2 that I still use to shoot trains when the mood hits.

Richard

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Yes, picture is from 1970. Got my first SLR, a Honeywell/Pentax Spotmatic F in 1974.

When I was about 12, I got a mostly plastic Vivitar 110 camera - with just one shutter speed and aperture available. In 1980 at age 15, I inherited my dad's Argus C44 (with a built-in 45mm lens and interesting shutter speeds like 1/100, 1/300) when he got a Pentax K1000 for Christmas. For Christmas 1983 I got a brand-new Pentax ME Super w/50mm lens, which would become my exclusive camera for the next 10 or so years.

Rich

My first cameras were a variety of simple box cameras. I graduated to my father's Kodak Pony in my late teens. Wow, it had adjustable shutter and f-stop settings, a relatively wide, sharp lens and 8 shots per roll of 828 film. And it didn't cost my too much in film or processing as I took the film to Tindall's Pharmacy in Salem, Ore, where my dad worked part time and put it on his account! I was in my 20s when I finally got a real 35mm camera, a Minolta SRT201 (which I also have, including the original f1.7 lens).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/10 10:07 by roustabout.

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Started out with a Kodak Baby Brownie Special. Bought a PAX M3 in Korea and finished out my teen years with it. No photos as both cameras were stolen years ago.

fbe Wrote:
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> So clean. Are you sure these are real railfan
> cameras?


Heh! Actually, my own 620 is probably cleaner than that photo. I was incredibly protective of it. I was once trying to line up a shot and backed off a 7 ft cliff. I was cut, scraped and filthy, but my right arm was ramrod straight holding that camera out of harm's way. Broken leg would have been fine so long as the camera was safe!

Z



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/10 11:18 by zephyrus.

Having started taking pictures in the late 1980s, I started with some 35mm point and shoot. Don't even remember what it was at the moment. By the early 1990s (when I was a teenager), I'd upgraded to a used Yashica 230AF. I eventually owned two and still have one, though the shutter sticks and I haven't actually shot with it in some time. Those two I used through college, and shortly after moving into the real world I switched to Canon.

I became a teen in 1960. I started out using some kind of Kodak box camera that used 127 film. My first adjustable camera was a Japanese model, I think called Taron, that served me for a couple of years in high school. When I got to college I sprang for a Miranda DR, an SLR that, along with Exakta, had an external stop-down mechanism -- the shutter release was on the front and you actually pressed a button on the lens itself that stopped the lens down to the proper aperture and released the shutter. When I was 19 or so I bought a Yashica-Mat TLR -- a great inexpensive camera.

Got this in 1951. Photos are here: http://coastdaylight.com/ferndale_memories.html

J. Lancaster

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Started out with a Kodak Instamatic 126. Had that up until I stated borrowing my brother's Minolta SRT 202. Finally bought my own Minolta SRT 101 used, and still have it. Beat the heck out of that, including a jump out the cab side window of ex WP 3005. (It was parked at the time). Then got a rugged Nikon F. Still have that. Graduated to a Nikon N2020, the last film camera I bought. Still have it. I now shoot everything with with a Nikon Coolpix 5700, my first digital. Someday I hope to get a digital SLR, but I don't shoot much anymore, so maybe I'll spend my money on a good slide scanner and relive my glory days.

Mike

My first camera was a Kodak Hawkeye Instamatic. It had 2 shutter speeds, slow and really slow, actually I think they were 1/60 and 1/30. I got it sometime in the mid-60's. I have a black and white shot of the "Cascade" leaving Portland with PA's in about 65 or 66. I'll scan the picture sometime and post it.

I shot color prints and Ektachrome slides. The slides are square and are basically 24mmx24mm. When I scanned them, I cropped them at 4:3 aspect ratio.

I started using my dad's Canon 7 rangefinder when I could borrow it. I purchased a Canon FTb in Decmber 1974 and have owned Canon ever since. I now have a 30D.

Here are 3 more taken with the Instamatic in 1971. I turned 19 that summer, so they qualify as teen pictures.

1. Portland Termianl Co. #45 switching the Depot Yard in Portland, OR.

2. Power for BN train #2, the Empire Builder connection, at Portland in the spring of 1971, just prior to Amtrak. SP train #11, The Cascade, is visible on the next track.

3. Power for BN train #397 in the short pass at Beaverton, OR in 1971. Crew left their train back by Tektronix, and came up to town for lunch

Nomosantafe
Fort Worth, Texas
"Where the West Begins"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/10 17:27 by nomosantafe.

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A Kodak Pony that I bought for a few bucks at a yard sale.

Doug Wetherhold
Allentown, PA

I got to use my grandma's Polaroid when I was around 8 back in 1983. Lousy pictures but better than nothing. I don't know what the first point and shoot kind of camera was that I used was. The pictures came out in a square format but not too bad looking. At age twelve I received a Kodak 110 and used it a lot until I was given a used Petri 35mm a couple years later. I wore the Petri out and got a K1000 for Christmas 1992. The K1000 still works but I use a Nikon D40, just got a D5000 and also have a Promaster for 35mm slides (when I remember to take it).

Not to be forgotten was a silent Super 8 movie camera, projector and film that I got at a garage sale in 1987. Used and improved my filming capability until Super 8 film became almost unobtainable. My grandma bought us Sears VHS camcorder in 1989. I can say it still takes a great movie, especially at night, and still accompanies me on railfanning trips.

Jim

I wonder whatever happened to the blonde in the boxcar.

JDE

You guys made me go dig up this photo from 1955. We were still in high school, and weren't really rail fans at the time. I can't remember the brand of this old 2 1/4 X 2 1/4 camera. That's me on the left with the cool hat. Good Lord.

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