My first camera was a plastic kid's camera that had to be carefully loaded from a roll of film backed by paper that was probably in the 110/120 size negatives. It was the 1950's equivalent of the famous Brownie except that you loaded your own film. It had one focus setting, and one exposure setting: daylight! And I only shot black and white with it. I remember using it with great fun in Yosemite, which I used to go to every summer for 2 weeks with my grandmother.

I jumped over the entire Instamatic craze (although my sister had one of those open-me-first cameras) and eventually got a used Argus C3 from my grandfather and used that through high school. It used impressively powerful flashbulbs for indoor shooting, that had such a distinctive odor that I'd still know them anywhere. Regretfully, that camera was passed along to other family members and I no longer have it myself.

Around 1970 I was serious enough about enjoying my photography to spend some serious money for that time. After careful research I split the cost of a Mamiya Sekor 1000DTL with my father, whose own rangefinder 35mm was about as old as I was. It was one of the best cameras I have, or ever will, own—especially because with its built-in spot meter system I never mis-exposed a shot. You'll see a picture of it among my posted images here as it has recently returned after being gone for decades.

When you grow up and move away from home sharing a camera isn't as convenient as it used to be. By 1980 that choice had to be made regarding the Mamiya. I offered my father the choice of either him buying me out, or vice versa. He opted to keep that camera and I was looking for something to replace it. My brother had owned an excellent Minolta XD-11 for a year or so by that time and I liked it a lot. However, my heart was eventually captured by a Canon A-1, probably the most advanced consumer SLR at the time, which I still own. Its feature set was just a little more cutting edge than the slightly older Minolta.

For a long time after digital came along I waited for an affordable camera that would perform at least in the ballpark of 35mm. Less than that simply didn't interest me. Occasionally I borrowed a more compact 35mm camera than my A-1 SLR w/35-105mm zoom lens for trips. I eventually bought a Minolta Vectis 300 APS camera to carry in my pocket places I wouldn't have brought the much bigger A-1 along. It has the limitations of 24mm APS film, but with the right film speed it produces passable results and I have a film negative scanner with the APS attachment to get everything possible out of the negatives. Sadly, Minolta went out of the camera business a couple years ago, although this camera is listed on Amazon at the moment as used for $150.

The story of how I ended up with my first digital camera, which has produced virtually all of the first 400 or so lovely images I've posted to this site, is recounted as my "Saga" across several consecutive postings here. Look for any picture of mine with the 'saga' tag (hint: the image of my Mamiya Sekor 1000DTL has that tag) to read that somewhat humorous account.

Since then I've recently added a Pentax K10K DSLR to my camera stable and will be using it more and more in times to come, although the Olympus will hardly be retired. The most important camera is the one you have with you at the time, and the Olympus remains a pocket camera (pants pocket, not shirt pocket) and will likely be carried at times when for any of several reasons its bigger brother wouldn't be along for the trip.

Go to any of my pictures and click the 'davidb' tag to see all of them.

I can be reached by e-mail at: david@dbarber.com