John,

My first 'real camera' was a Kodak Retina Ia; some online sources refer to the Retina Series as the first fine high-end cameras marketed by Kodak. The Retinas were made and assembled in Germany.

The "Ia" had no light meter, no rangefinder. The barrel of the fixed 50mm lens was predominantly marked with easily visible DOF lines radiating off from the f-stop markings. Everything was zone focusing. I actually thought of that camera when I was making my shots last night.

I was pretty good at zone focusing; often challenged on exposure. That's when I saved my money for a hand-held light meter.

Rusty

Ah, you made me look!

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie 127 Starlet with a side mounted flash - had it when I was about 11 years old.

Years later when I started working in a camera store on Vancouver B.C., I got a Yashica-44 that used the same film format - 127. It was an amazing camera - large negative size, sharp lens, ground glass focusing and all the bells and whistles of the big twin lens reflex cameras - still have it some where in the basement, haven't seen it in years. Looked like this:

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