My post today is a result of my favourite blogger, Mike Johnston, of The On-line Photographer ( T.O.P. ) suggesting that he is going to compose a list of ten favourite cameras, compiled from reader suggestions.

But it will probably be restricted to digital cameras, since film is too, er, retro?

That set me thinking that I would like to do a kind of biography of all the cameras I’ve owned and used since I started in about 1969. That’s 54 years; this will be a long post!

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My first camera (apart from borrowing Dad’s Voigtlander twin lens) was the Praktica Nova 1B.

I remember I bought it from a camera shop (remember those?) in William St, Perth. From memory, with Tessar 50mm lens, it cost about $120 I think, a lot of money then. These cameras were made in what was East Germany, Dresden I think.

It sticks in my memory because when I received my first roll of film back from processing (you had to send Kodachrome off to Melbourne for processing, taking about a week!), it was totally blank. Kodak included a note saying very politely, we think the film has not gone through the camera, due to not being attached to the takeup spool. I was extremely disappointed, as you can imagine. I never did that again. I developed the habit of using my left thumb to turn the takeup knob to check for resistance, signifying that there was film on the spool. It served me well.

Being a Zeiss Tessar lens, the quality of the images was very good, although I seem to remember flare was a bit of a problem. I kept it until about 1972, then donated it to the son of one of my cousins.

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My second camera was a source of great excitement, because I bought it in Singapore on my first trip overseas, to the UK, with my good friend from high-school days, Geoff Williams.

On the right, my travel notebook from 1974. I can still remember buying this camera, at a shop called Evergreen Electrical on the north side of People’s Park shopping centre, New Bridge Road, Singapore. I think I chose it on the basis of good reviews in Modern Photography magazine. Plus it was shutter priority auto exposure – you set a shutter speed and as long as the meter needle was in the zone, i.e. between f1.4 and f22 approx, then the camera set the aperture on the lens. I was a shutter priority believer. This was called “trap needle” automation in Konica-speak. Would you believe, a metal bar inside the camera lightly clamped down on the meter needle, and depending where on the bar, therefore that set the exposure.

It cost me S$468, and since the ratio of dollars then (1974) was A$1 = S$3.70, that made it A$126.49 – a bargain! I bought it with the Konica Hexanon 50mm f1.7 lens and of course in those days it came with the “never-ready” leather case. Geoff bought a Minolta SRT101 with Rokkor 50mm lens, and I remember having a slightly animated discussion about whether he should spend the extra money to get an f1.4 lens. He did. I thought it was a waste and he should have saved money with the cheaper f1.7.

I also bought a Vivitar 28mm lens, and a day later a Vivitar 135mm lens in Change Alley. Wow, what a great time I had. I loved that camera and kept it until 1980 when I sold it to a work mate. *Story to come.

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My next purchase, while I still had the Konica, that is, was a second hand Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex with standard 80mm lens.

This camera was unique for a twin lens, in that you could change lenses. The lenses were mounted on a metal “board” that was clamped to the main body by a wire lever. Crude, but it worked. I also bought a used second lens panel, a 28mm equivalent, although I had a lot of trouble with it, due to the aperture blades sticking. I think a previous owner had tried to lubricate them and used the wrong lubricant.

I owned this for quite a few years and it made a trip to Bali with me, on my first visit in 1980. It was an unwieldy camera to use, having to look down on the viewfinder from the top, on a laterally reversed image. It used 120 size film with 12 shots per roll. There was no snapshooting – each image had to be composed with the camera held at waist level. But the quality of the images was superb. I had a few stored away but they seem to have got lost. I donated it to my neice-in-law, who has repaid me by cutting me off, not speaking to me for more than 11 years.

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In about 1982 one of my workmates asked if he could buy the Konica setup from me. Sure, I said, as I was always looking to change cameras in those days.*

My choice for my next camera was one of my favourites of all my “career”, the Pentax Super A with 50mm lens as shown.

I think this was a great design. It gave Program exposure, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual exposure, simply by setting the lens aperture ring to A, or the shutter knob to A as desired, or leaving them independent for Manual. There was a small LCD window on the top plate to show shutter speed.

One small problem was the perspex window in the front of the pentaprism (shown above). This gave light into the viewfinder display, but when blocked off, the viewfinder went dark. This was never a problem for me because I didn’t wear hats, but when I sold it later to a mate, he complained bitterly because he wore baseball caps where the visor covered this window. He implied that the camera was faulty and that I hadn’t told him about this. Hmm.

Anyway, I never invested in Pentax lenses except for a couple of Tamron Adaptall 2 (changeable mount) lenses. I liked this camera because it had a very nice feel to it and I could adjust things by touch, without looking. This was my introduction to the Pentax family and I became a Pentaxian. I still am! I still have a comprehensive digital Pentax system (the K-5) and five or six lenses.

One drawback to it was the self timer switch (with the small arrowhead below the Super A logo in the top picture). This fell under my middle finger when holding the camera, and I grew frustrated at the number of times I pressed the shutter release, only for nothing to happen and to have the self timer start counting down because I’d accidentally moved this switch to on.

I sold it around 1986(?) because the Olympus Spot/Program became available at a very attractive price and I badly wanted to get into the Olympus system for their flash gear. So the Pentax was sold to my baseball-cap wearing friend. Who never read the manual that came with it and constantly whinged to me that it was “no good”, because he didn’t know how to use it. In the end he dropped it and it never worked properly again.

• In about 1984, my workmate asked me at work if I had the serial numbers of the camera, because he’d been burgled and the camera and lens was stolen. “Sure”, I said, and on the spot I said, “The camera body is 586755 and the lens is 7627303.” Seriously. I had memorised them when I went to the UK in 1974 and once in my brain, they stay there. I’ve just recalled them right now to write this. He was a bit gobsmacked. But it did no good, the camera was never recovered.

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To be continued! MUCH more to come.