[Joe]

Excellent posting Don.
I've enjoyed reading through other peoples trips down memory lane.
So here's mine....

My first camera was a Kodak 127 Brownie with lovely tartan case! I was given it by Dad. Interestly he was a wedding photographer at My aunties wedding(mum's sister), which is how he met mum. I took loads of pictures with it until I took it into school, dropped it and cracked the lens!...I cried all the way home!

I was bought a Disc camera after that. A ghastly thing that makes me shudder even now. I had little knowledge back then, but even at the time I realised it was a piece of junk.

Next piece of junk was a series of nasty compacts

First 'real' camera was a Pentax Spotmatic, and with my pocket money I saved up for a Photax 300mm preset f8 lens to go on it. I took many photos with that at the local motor track...one appears on my gallery of Nigel Mansell in his JPS F1car.

Sold the Pentax to get Praktica MTL3 with match needle metering and then MTL50 with fancy LED metering!....Both Prakticas shutters gave up....wished I'd kept the Pentax.
Got a Praktica BC1 electronic...awful horrid thing. binned it when that shutter jamed too.
I tried a lubitel for my first experience with 6x6

Got a decent SLR as birthday pressy...my first Contax RTS. That took me all the way through school. I sold it last year!

Starting college required a camera that was compatable with kit the college had....ie Nikon
I bought a Nikon F3, and an FM as backup...The Contax stayed back with my parents as I was packed off to sixth form then university.
Camera purchasing and selling then exploded!.....
The first F3 stayed with me until after uni', which I sold to pay off student loan...
Most have been secondhand, Nikon FA, F301, Yashica AF (the one with the slide on flash...can't recall model 230AF rings a bell tho...nasty 'trap' focus mode..plastic fantastic)
Canon A1 (even tho I lusted after the F1n at the time) Bronica ETRSi, Pentax 67 (until the bank manager student overdraft computer said no)
Borrowed larger format cameras from university Linhof, Sinar, and Arca Swiss all used. Hated lugging around big heavy cameras tutors insisted we used. I fell in love with Linhof Tech' landscape cameras. Massive panoramic format size, great lens, suprisingly leightweight considering it's format. A beautiful machine...but couldn't justify the price tag verses use for my own.
back to my own 35mm I even bought an original S/H Nikon F ...not sure why, but seemed like an idea to go with my F3 at the time.

More recently, a few film SLR's like Canon T70, Olympus 1000, Canon 500n, Ricoh, Cosina, Miranda...to name a few.

Canon Eos, Nikon f and D series, Pentax, Olympus, Minolta/ KonicaMinolta, sony Fuji etc.......have handled most popular cameras since through work....but fortunately never had the compulsion to own

My own kit the Contax RTS system finally went last year......

Enter the digital age for my own kit...and back with NIKON.
film cameras and my first digital a D1 and D1h...primarily for their speed, build quality and compatablity with one constant throughout the years...Tamron adaptall2 lenses. I still use them on the current bodies, though the lenses are more pro spec' than my early Tamron lenses.
I still prefer action pictures to larger format...and still wished I'd kept the Spotmatic!