Greetings.
I've been fascinated with cameras for as long as I can remember. I have some fuzzy, vague memories of my childhood in the early 70s, of messing around in my uncle's darkroom... Of all the things I remember, it's the smell of the chemicals, the developer, the stopper and the fixing that I remember most... Some weekends, I'd visit and my uncle would have a bunch of B&W film he wanted developing and I'd earn my pocket money hanging up strips of photos. I honestly don't think he needed me to develop them for him, he was probably ten times faster than I was, but maybe he just wanted to give me something to encourage me to learn the skills...
When I was a bit older, he gave me one of, if not his first SLR camera, his Minolta SRT 101 and told me he'd give me three rolls of Ilford a week if I didn't waste them. I can't remember what I used to take, but he kept giving me film, so I guess I wasn't wasting it.
Later on, I remember him swapping it for an Olympus OM-30... as he sold all his minolta gear.
This passion has seen me through highschool and university, always with an SLR at my side until I moved to Japan in the late 90s and picked up my first Nikons, an SP with an epic 5cm 1.1, an F3 with 50 1.2 and very soon after, a F4s which I used until I left the realm of film and manual focus and hit the Nikon D series of cameras, of which I have owned and used a bunch but currently own the D7200, D5 and Df.
Ironically, I have found my most recent acquisition, the Df to be my recent camera of choice and have found myself back in the land of AF screwdrive lenses from yore and even a few MF classics such as the Noct and the 135 2.8.
I'm hoping that I get some real time outside with this gear, since I haven't managed to do much photog work since 'rona raised her ugly mug.
Looking forward to getting to know you all!
