at my age, sometimes i pause, to remember when i was young, the loves, romance and relationships that i've had. i can remember about 12 or so, and gives me a smile when it all comes back.
the first was the best. a learning experience. the second, third and all the rest were better because of experience. i remeber my first touch, caress and held her. i pressed her against my head and till now i can still smell the sweet scent.
almost all had genuine leather casings and trims.
i can still remeber their names in their order.
the first was Baby Brownie, a Kodak camera, then an Argoflex, a twin lens 120 camera that had gears on both the edges of the taking and viewing lens so that when you turn one the other rotates also,it came with a GE exposure meter. after that my first slr, a minolta sr3 with a snap on meter. next was a pentax spotmatic with three lenses, a canon rangefinder with the 0.95 lens, my first experience with the view camera was with the linhof super technika with 4 lenses and corresponding cams for rangefinder focusing. it also had a zooming viewfinder that you can attach at the top.i loved this folding 4x5 for i could bring it with me on locations. then a rolleiflex and a praktica 120 slr made in east germany that was given to me as a gift by our american producer. after that came a leica m3, a nikon f and later on f5 and a f90 with data back. after that a minolta twin lens and later a minolta rb6x7 which until now resides with me such loyalty. the last 2 were a hasselblad and a sinar P.
talking about manual options, these past beauties were easier to adjust because of their click stops. after a while it became second nature to click the aperture or shutter knob whenever you wanted to over or underexpose.
Sigh... those were the days.
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