This was my first ever camera which I received when I was about 11 or 12. It took 126 film which came in a drop-in cartridge, but this is now difficult to get hold of.
Time to move on from the heavy and dark Zenith, I bought this from a mail order catalogue around 1987 and it was the best seller of its day. The viewfinder was SO bright compared to the Zenith and it had Aperture Priority, and now having more confidence I was able to rely on this mode to control depth of field.The only thing missing was a depth of field button which seemed to be a common omission in the 1980s.
This little 35mm compact was bought from Ebay for about £35, less than half what you'd pay new! It is very well specified with a nice 38-70 zoom and lots of controls including flash off for long exposures.
It was bought for us both to use but of course I use it most ;)
This Russian camera was my first ever SLR which my brother gave me when he bought a new one while in the Army. It opened a whole new world to me with its ability to alter shutter speed and aperture, remove the lens etc. It was the perfect learning tool and was one of Zenith's first cameras to feature TTL metering!
The one pictured is one I recently received as a gift from a kindly fellow Amateur Photographer and which is wearing the usual Helios 58mm f2 peset lens.
This is my current SLR which is a fantastic camera. I fell in love with it when I tried it out in Jessops Wolverhampton in 1999.It has lots of modes, an accurate and fast AF, DOF button and is incredibly lightweight!
It has TTL flash which makes macro flash so easy!
It also has a pop up flash with a Guide Number of 12, which is ideal for snaps though I hardly use it!