chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...bought a Canon copier and it broke, so when the time came I selected Nikon. (Hahaha...just kidding!). Needed to get into the digital game and be able to do a specific task (basically sports shooting) and went to my local camera store (Samy's...very knowledgable sales crew) and walked out with a Nikon D70s with a couple of kit lenses, *and* a 80-200 f2.8 that really did the job (or at least got me going kinda like bowling...you get a strike once in awhile and you go back). Why Nikon? Salesman...and the sexy name!

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Had one (Ciroflex), good camera, got it from my father, still have it somewhere, actually liked it better than the Mamiya C3, lot lighter, Bob.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Woodworm65, I was considering the selling of all my Nikon gear and getting a Canon 5D Mk IV. Perhaps I should rethink this, yes?

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

have used minolta srt101s and rokkor lenses and my nikon f and lenses from the very begining, 1959 for the nikon f and first year for the srt101s. both great cameras and in the case of the rokkor lenses, none better, even today.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

When I was 13 years old, I received a Kodak Pony 135 as a gift. When I grew out of it as a freshman in highschool, I moved up to a Miranda DR. At that age, I fell for their Popular Photography ads with the girl in the bikini. Besides that, at $169.95, it was one of the least expensive SLR's on the market. Later, I attended Brook's Institute of Photography in 1964 and bought a Nikon F Photomic. Since then I have stuck with Nikon. I currently have D800's.

truckster Loc: Tampa Bay Area

First off, always was and still am a hobbyist ... first camera was a Kodak instamatic ... for years. When I decided I wanted a little more I went to my local camera store and talked to the salesman. The guy was good, and showed be a lot of cameras, I chose a Canon FTb. Later I bought a 200mm lens to compliment the 50mm that came with the camera. Years later I sold the camera and all my gear except for the 200mm lens which I gave to my father who liked what I bought and went once step better and bought the "new" AE-1. Right before I got out of the hobby a friend let me shoot a roll on her Nikon F1. Right then I was hooked on Nikon even though the Canon could be used a a point and shoot on Auto. Years later I went digital with the Nikon camera that had the swivel lens (sorry, don't remember the designation) and had fun with it for years and it got me back into having fun taking pictures. Many years ago I wanted a Nikon D80, started to save up for it, then they came out with the D90 and now I wanted that one but it was even more money than the 80. Finally I just went out and bought a set-up I think I could be happy with, a Nikon D3300. Last year I bought a 18-300mm lens to go along with the kit lens. Next up is a flash unit.

Side note: after my dad died my son took over the AE-1. He says he will get into using it, shooting black and white film someday soon.

Paul Sr Loc: Colorado Springs, CO

After years of using Nikons in the air, on the ground and in the lab/studio I bought my first Nikon F Photomic when they were shutting the line down. It's quality and above all, its nearly indestructability were key decision points. If they could hold up to my use as a military air and ground photogpher, anywhere in the world that was a good testamony. Unfortunately, I don't think that any of the newer DSLRs are as physically durable.

rdgreenwood Loc: Kennett Square, Pennsylvania

In 1967 I got promoted to a tech rep position, and I knew that before long I'd be heading to Vietnam. I'd never owned a "good" camera, but my experience with my Polaroid 100 told me photography was an interest I wanted to pursue. I started to study cameras. For nearly a year I read and talked with people about cameras.

When, in July of 1968, I left for Vietnam, by way of Japan, I had narrowed my search to three brands: Pentax, Nikon, Nikkormat. I bought a Nikkormat (for $121.00 at the Naval Exchange in Atsugi, Japan). My decision was based on the fact that the Pentax had a screw-on lens mounting system that worried me, especially in the climate into which I was heading; Nikon was pricey and heavy; and the Nikkormat had a shutter system that the magazines claimed was better than the Nikon's.

The Nikkormat was my camera until 1987, when the pull of auto-advance led me to buy a Nikon 8008. I stayed with Nikon because all my lenses and accessories fit. That same reason followed me to a N90, a N90S, a D200, a D300, and to a D800E.

There you have it. My apologies for the lengthy response.

brucebc Loc: Tooele, Utah

Make that at least 3. First SLR was a Konica then a Canon QL 17 rangefinder (still have it) the light meter died in the Konica about 1983. No money to get it fixed, raising kids was where the money went first. Konica was stolen before I got around to getting it fixed. 1992 was in BX at Luke AFB in Phoenix and they had a good price on a Pentax P30t. Lost it in the brush in Soldiers Canyon Sedona. I think the strap caught on a bush and pulled it out of by pack. Pentax PZ-20 was next and I have two of them. Then I started to collect Pentax stuff. My favorite Pentax is the LX of which I have three. I really like the solid feel of them.
First digital was an Olympus from Sam's Club, 3 meg. Then a 6 meg Pentax isD. Shake reduction got me into a K10D, more meg caused a K-30 16 meg to be in the bag. 2016 and full frame K-1 was announced, I handled one at Tempe Camera and It felt like the LX. Birthday just after Christmas saw me bringing one home from Inkley's in Salt Lake City. It has a place of honor within the group of 87 other Pentax bodies and 52 lenses (most of them Pentax). So I think I'm a Pentax guy for a while at least.
Also have a 110 system and a 6x7 system. Still shoot the 6x7 sometimes.

psimison

I chose fuji due to the quality of the lenses

Flyerace Loc: Mt Pleasant, WI

I talked to quite a few professional photographers about equipment. Most shot Nikon. They let me touch and try their equipment. It felt good and I liked what it could go. I read the articles in photo magazines. In 1971, I purchased my first Nikon. I have stayed with the company ever since. I did wait for quite some time to switch to digital because the early digital cameras were too slow. I love my digital Nikons now and have no intention of changing brands. I might add in something that catches my eye, but I'm happy with what I have. I use cameras in the D5000 series because they are lighter, have large sensors and they perform for me. Happiness is never having to say "ooops, I bought the wrong thing for me". (I did that prior to 1971 and regretted it immediately. That camera met a watery grave when I threw it off the aft platform of a cruise ship!)

mstuhr Loc: Oregon

7th grade, 1960's my dad gave me a Kodak Pony 135
Hightschool, mamiya C-series twin lens reflex, photographer for school paper and annual. School provided
College, my roommate bought a Canon Ftb. Didnt like the camera. I paid for his skis and got the camera
Then
Ftb
AE-1
AE-1 Progam
Then decided to go digital. And decided to try Nikon. Just because. Nothing against Canon.
Bought a Nikon D70. Still have it and still use it.
This fall I bought a D750.
I have been very happy with all my cameras. They are better cameras than I am a photograher.
mike

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

My first SLR was a Exakta VXIIa in 1958. It was the only SLR then except Alpa which I could not afford. The Exakta saw me through the sixties and 3 years in Europe and I upgraded (?) to a Minolta SRT101, picked up an SRT201 as well eventually.All satisfying cameras. By the 80's I was able to afford either Canon or Nikon and chose Nikon because at the time Nikon had the best reputation for sharp glass. Several Nikon bodies later I am still with Nikon and a D800e body which serves me well. Along the way I picked up a Sony nx-5 on a bargain sale and found it a satisfying lightweight body to have available. I also picked up a refurbished Canon SX-50 for the extreme range without lens swapping. My serious body is still the D800e and appears it will be for the foreseeable future. I do take the Sony and Canon along more readily as the Nikon rig with the lenses does make quite a load. I don't foresee any new purchases in the near future.

Ghery Loc: Olympia, WA

Let's see, cameras I've owned...

The first, in the early 1960s was a Boy Scout box camera using 620 film (IIRC). Shot black and white as color film was too expensive.

Next came an Instamatic. Used that for a while.

I borrowed my Dad's Kodak 35 (how many of you remember that OLD camera?) and a Weston Master II light meter for a band trip to Europe in 1971. I got very fast in setting an exposure after taking a reading with the light meter and those old Kodachrome II slides still look pretty good.

When I graduated from college in 1975 my parents gave me a Minolta SRT-102 with the 50 mm Rokkor-X lens. I added some lenses over the years and got great service out of that camera. Lots of slides, and then print film.

And then came the digital cameras (and they took my Kodachrome away).

1st was a Sony Mavica. 1 MPixel, used 3.5 inch floppy discs for storage. I still have it, but the battery is kaput. That, and I don't think I have a computer in the house that is operational with a 3.5 inch floppy drive anymore.

2nd was an Olympus C-740. Point and shoot, 3.2 MPixel, 10X optical zoom lens. Great camera for its time and I carried it as a backup as late as 2009 (thank goodness).

Somewhere along the line I picked up a small point and shoot that will fit nicely in a pocket. I seldom use it now as my phone has a better camera. I have a pair of pictures I took in Bogota, Colombia in 2013, one with the point and shoot and one with the phone at the time and the phone picture looks better. And phone cameras have only gotten better since then.

1st DSLR was a Sony A100. 10 MPixel. Good camera for its time. I went with the Sony A100 in 2007 over Canon and Nikon as I liked the ergonomics of the controls better. Personal preference at the time. The only problems I had were the focus mechanism in the 18-70 mm lens that came with it started jamming up on an extended trip through the eastern Mediterranean in 2009 and the third party batteries that I purchased to save some money weren't recognized by the camera, so they didn't make the trip. Went with 2 Sony branded batteries. That focus mechanism failure caused me to fall back on the Olympus C-740 when the 75-300 mm lens was too long. I have some great pictures from that trip taken with the Olympus.

2nd DSLR was a Sony A200. An upgraded A100. Bought it in 2009 right after getting back from the trip through the eastern Med. Still works, along with its 18-70 mm lens and the old 75-300 mm that came with the A100. Oh, and they changed the battery and memory card format between the A100 and A200, so no interchangeability there. Started from scratch in those areas.

3rd (and current) DSLR is a Canon T5i. 3 lenses. The kit lenses (18-55 mm and 55-250 mm) and the 18-135 mm. I'm very happy with this camera as it does everything I need, and then some. Bought this in the spring of 2015. 1 Canon and 2 third party batteries, they all work fine. Over 11,000 pictures so far with no problems.

Why did I shift from Sony to Canon? Sony got out of the business of full sized DSLRs. There was no real upgrade path from my A200 and shifting to anything else they had would have meant starting over on lenses (no A mount). So, back to square one. My daughter has a T3i and has been very happy with it. By the time I was looking the T3i was no longer made and the T5i was the current model. It will serve me for some time to come.

So, anyway, that's my story on cameras. Not my primary hobby, but I do like to take good pictures on trips. And digital allows me to take a bunch and only share the good ones. That trip to the eastern Med in 2009 resulted in over 4000 pictures between the three cameras my wife and I were carrying (she had a Fujifilm P&S) and of those maybe 50 are "good" and one I took won a contest at work (without modification using Photoshop or anything). Have fun!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I used Konica, Nikon, Canon FD/FL mount, Pentax, Wista, Mamiya, Bronica, and a few other film cameras in the distant past.

In 2001, for 35mm film I switched to Canon film cameras: a pair of EOS-3 initially, eventually supplemented with an Elan 7E (EOS-33, one of the quietest film SLRs ever made) and later with 1V HS. Those were my first autofocus cameras.

I chose them was because:

- Only Canon was offering image stabilization at that time.
- Canon and Nikon offered the largest and most complete systems of lenses and accessories, including some specialized items I felt I might need in the future. Third party manufacturers also made more items for Canon or Nikon, than any other camera brands (still do).
- Canon telephoto lenses, in particular, were renowned for their excellence. Partly that was because Canon was a leader in the use of fluorite in lenses (still is).
- Canon also was a pioneer in multi-point AF systems. EOS-3 and 1V had 45-point AF... same as used in a lot of the earlier 1D-series models. Elan 7 had 7-point AF, same as used in Canon's first few APS-C digital cameras, I think, and very similar to the 9-point still used in many.
- Canon was committed to making their own CMOS sensors... Everyone else was buying CCD from Kodak or a few other suppliers (Canon had already done several joint projects with Kodak, but was moving on to do their own thing). Early research suggested to me that CMOS was going to be better, and that's been proven out. Everyone is using CMOS now... even medium format have been switching to it the past couple years.
- Canon also was close to the largest corporation in the pro-level photography business at that time (Sony didn't enter the DSLR business until 2006), so was likely to have the resources for R&D that were going to be needed for digital camera development in the future.
- DSLRs were too expensive/under-powered at that time. A 3MP Canon D30 was the first DSLR to sell for under $3000 US... by all of $1... $2999. But I anticipated "going digital" eventually and didn't want to have to change systems, if at all possible. It wasn't until about a year after the 6MP 10D came available in 2003 that I finally bought one. The 10D was the first DLSR to sell for under $2000 US.
- Canon also was the first to bring practical "full frame" digital to market. Too pricey for me initially, but I anticipated wanting one in my kit eventually.
- One concern I had was that around 1990 Canon had orphaned their earlier FD/FL system when they went to the modern EOS/EF electronic mount. At the time, that really pissed off a lot of the earlier system users, which I could fully understand. Canon had done it once before, too (mid-1960s, going from R-mount to FL). Other systems had, too. Another system that I'd used and invested a lot in had gone "belly up", leaving me dangling. Would Canon do that again? Or would Nikon's approach of maintaining the same basic mount and trying to keep it up to date work better over the long run? I didn't know for certain, but thought that the EOS/EF mount was likely to have a lot of life left in it. Sure enough, it's held up well with no sign of faltering even now. Nikon has had quite a few lens/camera "compatibility" issues over the years... first with metering and aperture control, then with various AF systems they've tried out. There have been none of those sorts of issues with the EOS/EF, after the initial, painful break from the past.

I'm still happy with my choice. Everyone else has pretty much caught up with Canon in their technology... sometimes even slightly surpass them in one way or another. But Canon has continued to develop and introduce products that largely meet my needs... sometimes better than I'd hoped. Besides, changing systems now would be really expensive!