Got my first camera when I was eleven ... it was all made out of plastic and required assembly ... little more than a toy ... but it was enough to start me on this journey. A couple of years later, my brother and I convinved our folks to buy us a real camera ... it was $20 from Honest Ed's ... an East German Werra 35mm rangefinder with a novel film advance mechanism. This kept us going until we could afford our own SLR's.

In 1970 I got a Canon TL-QL, which was followed two years later by a Canon FTb, then a Canon AE-1 in 1978. My first digital was an Olympus in 2001 ... this one got very little use ... still preferred the AE-1. A borrowed Casio took over in 2006 and recently I got a Canon A720.