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@rdenney
For the longest time I dreamt of a view camera, I almost bought a Wista 45 but ... money was scarce and I was doing a stint for Construction Progress Photography, I bought an Hasselblad SWC with its 38 mm Biogon lens.. Didn't regret it , it made me some needed money
... That was my mirrorless at the time
. My first mirrorless was a Canon
Canonet GL Q17, a gift from my dad... a rangefinder 35 mm with a Selenium meter.. Automatic to boot.
Edit: it was a Canon Canonet 19. I
I had a Canonet 28--a great little camera for snapshots. That's the sort of camera that is utterly displaced by cell phones, and it's a shame in some ways--color slides from that Canonet could be projected alongside slides made using my Canon F-1 without embarrassment (and without anyone noticing).
My first view-camera experience was with a Linhof Kardan Color owned by the architecture school where I was studying at the time. Beautifully made, but a beast and even then rather out of date (if a view camera can be out of date). After college, I no longer had access, and I also had no money. But I found a Newton NueView--a truly dreadful camera of no redeeming value whatsoever. That was one of my first lessons in requirements-driven engineering--
know your requirements before spending money. I soon replaced that with a Calumet CC-400, which was a big improvement. That was replaced with a Cambo SC--my first really modular view camera and that's what confirmed me as a monorail guy and not a field-camera guy. I bought my first Sinar in the modern era (maybe 15 years ago)--a Sinar F2. I have since added a Sinar P to that.
And then there's the usual junque that people like me seem to attract--a Speed Graphic, a couple of Travelwides, etc.
And then there's the freezer full of 4x5 film.
The Biogon used in the SWC was a true Biogon--approximately symmetrical opposing reversed telephotos. That's why it was mirrorless--the lens had to get pretty close to the film. The Jupiter 9, made in the Soviet Union, was the back half of that design, so it got really close to the film and could only work in one of their Leica or Contax-ripoff Feds, Kievs, or Zorkis. All wide-field large-format lenses--Super Angulons, Grandagons, Nikkor-SW, etc.--followed in the footsteps of that original Biogon.
I never thought of cameras-for-pay-gigs in the same way as cameras-for-hobby-photography. My pay-gig camera (and it was my main side hustle in college for several years) was a Mamiya C-3 (precursor to the C-330). A superb camera for commercial work in its day. I shot a number of weddings with it, among many other diverse assignments ranging from catalog photos to fancy report covers.
But SLRs are emotional for me, and we all have such. My first 35mm camera was a Yashica Lynx 5000, a nice fixed-lens rangefinder. But I dreamed every waking moment of getting an SLR--that was just
the camera to have. That took me through a succession--a Mamiya 1000DTL, a Pentax KX (the first one in the film era), and finally to the Canon F-1. I've felt most at home for portable work with SLRs with optical viewing ever since.
Rick "nostalgia is a wonderful drug, but like all drugs, the effects don't last" Denney