I don’t remember when or how I first got hooked on photography. I know my first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 126. 126 referred to the size of the film which was in a plastic cartridge.
One day I was walking in town and passed a store window with some interesting objects on display. The store was a family run optician practice. Those gadgets had dials and what looked like a lens. I thought they could be a type of camera I’d never seen. I couldn’t quite decide what I was looking at. I had to know more.
I walked into the shop and spoke with an old guy who probably owned the place. He explained that those gadgets were 35mm SLR cameras. To me they seemed to be a type of device sent from another planet.
He explained how they worked but I didn\’t understand much of what he was saying or what it had to do with taking pictures. He showed me a Japanese Ricoh and a German Leica. They had a weight to them and a metallic feel.
There were orange and white numbers marked on a large lens barrel and a small housing at the top. Looking down through the lens I could see it was amazingly complex with many components hiding down there.
He explained that the lens was composed of 6 high quality glass elements that were organized into groups. The groups functioned to manipulate light rays of various properties to all come to focus at one place. Impressive!
Then he showed me where the flash would attach, where the camera body attached to a tripod and how the lens could be removed and changed for other lenses with other optical capabilities.
Then he showed me the price tags. Being a small business, I understand now that to make money he had to charge close to full retail. I couldn\’t imagine how to justify paying that much for a camera. My Instamatic had cost less than $25.
I read magazines such as Modern Photography and Popular Photography to find out everything I could about those 35mm cameras.
I had to get myself a 35mm camera. All those SLRs were way too expensive for my budget. Eventually, I compromised with the purchase of a Konica 35mm rangefinder with an F1.8 lens. It wasn’t a Leica, but to me Konica represented a quantum improvement in photographic capability.