I’ve always been fascinated with cameras, and what they can do. When I was very young I used to watch with fascination as my Dad took photos with his SLR. I think I loved the idea or being able to change the lenses. I had my own little Fisher Price toy camera, and I remember using a used toilet roll as a telephoto and popping it over the end of the toy camera lens. Of course back then toy cameras were just toys, not actual cameras for young children which is what my kids later had. My brother and I used to take our little Fisher Price cameras with us whenever we went on a family outing, which from what I remember, was quite a bit.
When I was eight, I think, my grandmother gave me own proper camera for my birthday. It was a Polaroid, but not one of those where the photo comes out of the front… with this one I had to pull the exposed photos out of the side, let it sit for five minutes or so and then peel the photo off the backing. It was quite messy and the chemicals could get everywhere. But it was a camera, and I did used it as much as I could. The downer was the cost of the film, so I was a bit limited in how many photos I could take.
When I was ten , my Dad dusted off his very first camera that I believe he received as a 21st Birthday present from his parents. It was a Voigtländer Vito B, a fully manual camera with no built-in light meter. He bought me a new light-meter and a roll of black and white film and taught me the basics of aperture and shutter speed. Focus was manual based on judgement – there were not focusing aids. This was the first proper camera I used, and I am now glad it was because I had to learn the basics. I completed the first roll of film and we had it developed, with a contact strip print to look at the results. Overall I thought I did quite well, and from that time on I switched to colour negative film.
As I took more photos I started to dream of having a proper SLR, like my Dad had. As he had a Canon A-1 I was only really interested in Canon so I started to look into buying one with my savings. I ended up going for the Canon T70, which I got as a kit with a Tokina 28-70mm lens, from what I remember. I must have been about 14 or 15 at the time and I finally had a “proper” camera. The T70 was a very capable and at the time, advanced camera. It was the 1980s version of the Canon AE-1, with a addition of three program modes. I certainly enjoyed using it, but film was still quite expensive so I tried to make every shot count and shied away from experimenting with photography as a whole. As the title of this post implies, it was always the cameras that I loved and I was fascinated that I could capture a scene and look back on it for ever via a photograph. But a photographer I was not.
Over the years I continued to use the T70, switching to transparency (slide) film and taking photos to document my life, such as outing, holidays, etc. I moved from Kodak Ektachrome to Fujichrome, something that happened by accident as I was on holiday and needed a new roll of film, and all that was available was Fujichrome. It turned out to be a blessing, as I discovered film stock that was more vivid and pleasing to me and have stuck with Fujifilm ever since.
At one point when I was about 18, I lent my T70 to my brother to take on a Summer trip that he was going on with a friend. I then found myself also heading off for a week with friends, and didn’t have my trusty T70 to hand. My Dad was kind enough to lend me his Canon A-1 along with a couple of prime lenses so that I had something decent to take photos with. My Dad had been using his A-1 ever since I could remember, and it was a privilege to be able to borrow it. It was also a moment of realisation for me. The T70 was no A-1. For all the digital tech, auto-winder, slightly more modern looks, to me using the T70 could not compare to using the A-1. What I had been missing was aperture priority and perhaps a more engaging experience taking photos. To this day the Canon A-1, specifically my Dad’s one, is my favourite camera of all time.
At some point in my early twenties I decided that it was time for something more portable, something I could take anywhere. I bought a Canon Sure Shot Max, loaded in some negative film and took it along with my T70 on a holiday to North Eastern USA. It was a great camera for group photos and carrying around a city when I would otherwise have felt a bit uncomfortable carrying the T70 around.
About ten years after I bought my Canon T70 an opportunity came up for a good deal on a Canon EOS camera, along with a couple of kit lenses. Being a new system there was no point in buying an EOS body as I couldn’t use my FD lenses on it, even if my lens collection numbered only two by this point. The kit that I bought was the Canon EOS 500N with 28-80mm and 80-200mm zoom lenses. It was all quite basic, but what really excited me is that it would be the first camera that I owned that would have the now standard PASM (program, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual) modes, and would therefore finally match the Canon A-1 in functionality. This was a good upgrade on the T70, and I confess I didn’t really miss the older SLR after I made the switch. For me the 500N was a great camera at that time – it had the PASM modes of the A-1, the auto-winding of the T70, a built in flash, a couple of useful lenses, and a few other new features such as autofocus. This was the camera that would enable seamless transition to Canon DSLRs down the line. I also bought it just before the first affordable digital cameras started to appear. The sun was setting on my 35mm film camera days.
Vivi Somnium 