My First Camera

It’s been almost three years since my father passed away.  He was a great man that had a long and productive life.  A lot of who I am today is because of him and his support.

He was stationed in England in 1953 while in the Air Force.  He was the first “Airman of the Month” on his base and received a nice wall plaque for it that still hangs on the wall.

In 1953 Queen Elizabeth II became the crowned monarch of the British Empire.  It made quite an impression on my father and he captured many images from that celebration with his camera he purchased while in England.

It is a Zeiss Ikon that uses 120mm film.  By any standards, the camera is now an antique.  I don’t remember him using it while we were growing up, probably because he had moved on to a more simplified camera.  The top button for your right hand releases the bellows and allows the camera to be functional.  The top button for your left hand is the shutter release which is the opposite of modern cameras.

In seventh grade, at Springbrook Middle school, I was able to learn about photography and use the darkroom to develop film and prints.  I was fascinated at the processed and found a lifetime of inspiration from it.  I acquired my own enlarger, trays, film canisters, and the paper and chemicals needed to have my own darkroom at home.  I was hooked.

My father allowed me to use the 20 year old camera and showed me how the controls worked.  It compares to today’s digital cameras about like the covered wagon compares to an automobile.  It was a lot more work to capture the image, but it made me understand shutter speed, aperture and film speed.  The film speed was on the ASA standard instead of today’s ISO.

The aperture and shutter controls were around the lens at the end of the bellows.  A mechanical lineage triggered the shutter.  There are two tripod mounts for vertical and horizontal positioning.

A large roll of film would allow 36 images before having to stop and change the roll.  Today’s memory card, the equivalent of film, holds hundreds, if not thousands of images.  Another HUGE improvement is the ability to change the speed of your film (ISO setting) at any point.  With film, you were stuck with what you had purchased and installed into the camera.

Many thing have changed and improved over the almost 60 years since this camera was new, but that alone will not make you a better photographer.  You still need to understand the principals of exposure, understand your equipment and most of all, have creativity and vision.

 Thanks Dad, for your support and encouragement from the beginning.