Had a Kodak Brownie hand-me-down from my mother as a kid.
In the USAF, in a BX, I bought a Zeiss Contessamat SE. It was a rangefinder camera, and I didn't know enough to get a SLR. But it had a superb lens and some of you have probably seen photos that I took with it. It was stolen off of a hotel restaurant table when I forgot to take it to the loo when I went. Had a roll of film in it taken during Elmer Keith's Dallas visit in the late 1970's. The photos included Keith shooting a .44 Magnum at a local range. Thankfully, the gun and camera store owner who sponsored his visit loaned me a Nikon to take some additional photos, with which I illustrated my articles for the Dallas Morning News and a gun magazine.
I am still bitter over the loss of that camera and wonder if the thief ever developed the film. He must have been surprised to see that old man shooting a big gun, big hat, too.
With it, I took many good photos of girls whom I dated. Alas, after I married, my wife found them and threw them out while I was at work. I was not happy. Thankfully, that marriage later ended. Divorce is often a real blessing. Mine was!
In college (Journalism student) , I was issued a double lens camera by Yashica. It was a copy of the German equivalent, I think by Rollei. It used 2.25X2.25 film, not 35mm. I got some good pics with it at the zoo, including some in the staff area in the reptile house. I sold some photos taken with it.
I used Tri-X film and developed some of it myself. I sold a photo of a mallard drake that I think I took with that camera. It was used on the cover of an outdoor/gun title. It's one of the pics of which I'm most proud.
My first good SLR was an Olympus OM-1n. I had only a 50 mm Macro lens, but it sufficed for what I was doing. I had to sell it when my ex let me have my daughter and we had to move, in part to get her in a safer school system. I replaced it with a new OM-1n. Later, a member of this board gave me an older OM-1. I have 50mm, 135mm, and a zoom lens to 250mm. I especially prize a squirrel photo taken in a tree with the 135mm lens in place.
And I bought a very nice used Nikon FG. Whoever owned it before me evidently used it carefully, if at all. Looks new. Basic 50mm 1:8 Nikon lens. I THINK the Olympus lens is a little sharper, but it's close.
Gun writer Don Zutz used Olympus cameras and told me that he felt their Zuiko lenses were superb. I agree.
I'm not a brilliant photographer. I bummed advice where I could. Gun writers like John Wootters and John Sundra and Don Zutz helped in brief conversations, some with Wootters more extended. Zutz exchanged letters for a time, too. I think he was probably the best writer yet on shotguns. Playboy' s David Chan gave me advice on lighting techniques as we stood in a line at the bank. And I bought some good books. Sid Latham's, "Camera Afield" and Wootters's books were especially valuable. John W. told me how he pushed Tri-X film far above its rating of 400 ISO to get a really good photo of a bobcat in fading light. He used it in several articles, I think. He was justly proud of that photo.
With the exception of Zutz and myself (Olympus OM series), all of the pros I met used either Nikon or Canon cameras. And I used my Nikon some. But every amateur I asked who had a Pentax liked it, and their lenses obviously peform well, as we've seen here in Paladin's photos.
