Just thinkin', on a cool Christmas morning.... After reading the "progression of cameras" thread, I got a little wistful for past hardware, wished I still had it.
My top three
1. Nikkormat FT2 with 50/2.0 Nikkor - my first good quality SLR, and I had it for years, took a lot of great pictures with it. It was all I had, one body, one lens, so I learned to make do with what I had, and it taught me to see better, be more creative, take more photographic chances.
2. Not on my "progression" list through oversight, but I had a little Rollei 35 with the Zeiss Tessar. Just a fun camera. Had a little meter battery powered meter built in, made in Germany, black... pseudo James Bond stuff. And the imaging was VERY good... amazingly good in fact.
3. Nikonos III with the 35/2.5 W-Nikkor. I loved that lens. The camera was good, with limited shutter speeds and such, but the lens was fantastic. One of the most detailed photographs I ever took was of a local hospital building, on Panatomic-X film, under-rated by about a stop and a half. That picture really defined "detail" on the 35mm format. I took it with a Nikon S2, with a 35/2.5 W-Nikkor. Take that lens, put some more modern and decent coatings on it (improving it!), and you had the standard lens for the Nikonos.
And runner up - either of the Canon A-1's I owned. Canon's entry into the digital age, first 35 SLR with "program" mode, also had 5fps drive and a nice little grip that could be detached. Most of the FD lenses were "ok", but I never really liked their color rendition compared to the Nikkors of the day... I still liked all my FD system and abused it well, and it never let me down.
My top three
1. Nikkormat FT2 with 50/2.0 Nikkor - my first good quality SLR, and I had it for years, took a lot of great pictures with it. It was all I had, one body, one lens, so I learned to make do with what I had, and it taught me to see better, be more creative, take more photographic chances.
2. Not on my "progression" list through oversight, but I had a little Rollei 35 with the Zeiss Tessar. Just a fun camera. Had a little meter battery powered meter built in, made in Germany, black... pseudo James Bond stuff. And the imaging was VERY good... amazingly good in fact.
3. Nikonos III with the 35/2.5 W-Nikkor. I loved that lens. The camera was good, with limited shutter speeds and such, but the lens was fantastic. One of the most detailed photographs I ever took was of a local hospital building, on Panatomic-X film, under-rated by about a stop and a half. That picture really defined "detail" on the 35mm format. I took it with a Nikon S2, with a 35/2.5 W-Nikkor. Take that lens, put some more modern and decent coatings on it (improving it!), and you had the standard lens for the Nikonos.
And runner up - either of the Canon A-1's I owned. Canon's entry into the digital age, first 35 SLR with "program" mode, also had 5fps drive and a nice little grip that could be detached. Most of the FD lenses were "ok", but I never really liked their color rendition compared to the Nikkors of the day... I still liked all my FD system and abused it well, and it never let me down.
