- Love this detail. The new cameras don't seem to have it. Reminds me of my dad!
:-) - NasB
My first camera
Explore: Jun 4, 2008 #416. Bought at Heathrow Airport while going on a Cambridge University research trip to India (my first and last visit). Below is an extract from my diary of the time. Memories:-)
“Monday, February 14, 1983: Left Finsbury Park [where I was staying overnight with friends] at around 6.45 am and reached Heathrow Airport by tube around 8.00 am. The flight to India was at 9.30 am. It was delayed until 11.30 am because of bad weather in the States. I was flying to the East, while the States is to the West (or was the last time I looked at the map). I bought a camera at the Heathrow off-duty shop: Pentax ME Super, £ 129. Essential for this Indian trip as I probably won’t get another free chance to visit again.
Arrived in Delhi at 3.10 am (Indian time). Strange how one moment a person is in one place and after a short time later one is at quite a different place. No Problem with flight or at Delhi airport. Walked straight out, got on an airport bus and booked into the Asian International hotel for 180 rupees a day. Slept till 10.00 am, refreshed and went out immediately to visit the Jamia Masjid and Lal Qila (Red Fort complex).”
Comments and faves
Lunalunita, Nima Shafaieh, ps70 ...,,.,.,, д§mд, and 40 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Werner Schnell (1.stream) (49 months ago | reply)
great memories...
Lunalunita (49 months ago | reply)
Yepp, absolutely !!
kzappaster (49 months ago | reply)
A beautiful camera. I own one too and I'm still using it once and a while.
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
well, mine is still in working order! never had any problems. compare that to our new digitals!
Pisces Romance (49 months ago | reply)
excellent still life my friend~~ thanks for sharing~
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ana_lee_smith (49 months ago | reply)
Great shot! Still looks new :-))
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
didn't even clean it:-)
Lawrence OP (49 months ago | reply)
Yes, it is strange how one can wake up in one place and lie down to sleep in another very different place...
DeniseJC (49 months ago | reply)
Wonderful memories ... thanks for sharing. I had my first SLR at about that time too ... a Canon AE1 ... the good old days, but I wouldn't swap my DSLR for anything!
Nicely composed shot!
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
... and it is strange, lawrence, how one meets strangers (as on flickr) who become friends, and how, in life, some friends become strangers! it's a weird and wonderful world:-)
ps70 ...,,.,., (49 months ago | reply)
a cool camera!
Mollow2 (49 months ago | reply)
Great story. How did those India photos turn out back then?
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
i'm not saying, denise, i'd NECESSARILY, swap my old pentax for my new canon 5d:-) but the old gadgets are STILL excellent in their own way after SO many years and i'm not sure whether the new ones will fare so well! at the end, a gadget is only as good as the person operating it! the major difference with the old and new is that one took time and thought about what one was doing MORE than one does with the new digitals.
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
mollow2: i enjoyed the trip! the photos were taken on slide film and some bw's. didn't taken huge quantities, but was pleased with what i took (spent time enjoying the visit more than spending taking photos).
greenwood100 (49 months ago | reply)
You'll never forget your first camera and you'll never forget you first hours in India. It's a punch in the face but when you get up from the shock it's all worth it.
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
you're right about the "punch in the face":-) we get used to our own little worlds until we get out and see the real world:-) i'd love to go back again sometime. such a diverse and vast place!
i.rashid007 (49 months ago | reply)
WOW !!!
So you spent 129 Pounds at that time for this wonderful Piece !!!
Great memories Indeed !!!
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
had to be done! needed the tool! and if i hadn't bought it then i wouldn't have the newer digitals that i now possess and nor would i, i think, take the kind of photos that i do:-) more importantly, i love the process of being out and about and shooting:-)
_ØяAcLә_ (49 months ago | reply)
Amazing that you still have this......I wish I still had mine, but it was so long ago that Im afraid that it was lost in the move when my family left Okinawa Japan.....Outstanding Capture my good man :))
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
photos often trigger memories and i thought i'd do so with the object that takes the pictures:-)
gilltheaker (49 months ago | reply)
Lovely story - but that camera was quite expensive when translated into today's money. I hope you enjoyed it!
filtran (49 months ago | reply)
I am really hoping you will take some pics with this and post them.
Not only is it a great camera but I do believe shooting with film requires a different range of skills from digital, and therefore produces different results.
I am currently using an Olympus OM2N which my father bought around the same time as this one. He has an earlier Pentax Spotmatic whic I must dig up and have a go with.
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
enjoyed a lot, gill:-)
Aster-oid (49 months ago | reply)
Time flies... and I hate that!
;-)
MiѕsĐìor©أميرة الورد[Qtr] (49 months ago | reply)
i think it's an expensive memorise to u ..
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
filtran: fun and hardwork, but perhaps i might do some new shots with it or share some old ones!
NasB (49 months ago | reply)
Wow! Thanks for sharing this lovely little cameo... It seems a more personal sharing of yourself than anything I've seen from you before.
:-)
I can just picture you writing this in your hotel room.
Whatever the tool you use, I guess its about the memory that you have created through holding it in your hand, not only in the images themselves that remain, but in the experience of standing behind the lens, and perhaps more than that, of looking at the world around you with the eye of a cameraman. Somehow, the practice of photography - whether one is good or just mediocre, it doesn't matter - changes the eyes through which the looker sees.
Lovely image, my friend. And happy snapping for many days and holidays to come!
:-)
keyphotographics™ [deleted] (49 months ago | reply)
this is wonderful my friend!
love the ornaments!
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
nas: one of the key topics we did in our public history class was memory and objects. we take photos and we share them, but each image is a part of our personal history. it's about telling tales (visual, oral...) and stories and recording our lives. i've demonstrated it here with an image, an object and documentation.
key: if you refer to the islamic decorations, then it's a wooden, hand-crafted table from pakistan i received as a present:-)
NasB (49 months ago | reply)
Clever fella! nIcely told too...!
:-)
As you say, memory and association, objects and images - all part of the awesome tapestry of the things that make us, and part of the way we remember the way things are.
The lens seems to just focus and define part of this process....
chelmsfordblue (49 months ago | reply)
I had one of those (ME Super). Must search it out and see if still works.
mym (49 months ago | reply)
Spooky, I did EXACTLY the same thing EXACTLY 10 years later - except my first visit being the Mantar Jantar and Lal Qila .
Scooter.John (49 months ago | reply)
Very cool shot, great story and fantastic follow up. I think it's very cool to have kept a diary. It's something I've never done (not enough commitment or confidence that I'd have anything worthwhile to say) but always would have liked a record of my feelings and the things i have done to look back on.
I used to have a Pentax MX which i think was a similar model. It got stolen from a van at the top of a mountain in New England when I was in my early 20s. I wonder if the thief is still getting use out of it!
7Bart (49 months ago | reply)
I love pentaxxx
Sir Cam (49 months ago | reply)
yes, the mx is almost the same. i once asked a friend, who is a history professor, if he kept a diary and if so for how long he had he been doing it. the reply was 50 years! that inspired me a lot:-) you'll note that my flickr address is "flickr.com/photos/camdiary/" and this is a sort of diary keeping, too:-)
Itzick (Catching up slowly) (49 months ago | reply)
also mine first camera was Pentax SLR camera which I worked with many years and I was very happy with (I had two of them)
farmb [deleted] (49 months ago | reply)
That's a beautiful camera and a beautiful memory. The first camera is always special :)
Frederic-JG (49 months ago | reply)
Everybody start photo for differents raisons, good idea to by this pentax, now we are happy to see your fabulous pictures, and read your interestings comments.
zoom in tight (49 months ago | reply)
I have to admit that my eyes cross a little when I see images of cameras. But this one is so interesting because of the setting with the table from Pakistan. Love getting a glimpse into your journal. When do we get to see what you look like?
*ian* (49 months ago | reply)
Great memories for you! Thanks for sharing them!
--
(Spied whilst rummaging through my contacts' photos)
jotKa26 (49 months ago | reply)
you couldn't go wrong with a Pentax...
REM (rembcc) (49 months ago | reply)
You have some lovely memories with this cam!
M. Asif - AWAY ! (49 months ago | reply)
Good shot with good old memories.
paul (england) (49 months ago | reply)
Funnily enough, I'm thinking of upgrading to one of these (seriously!). But I think I might hold out for the (much rarer but also *much* sexier) black version ...
(The MX was a slightly earlier model - many would say better (upmarket rather than mass-market) - but it was manual only. The MX also had a proper shutter speed dial - not those somehow rather less pleasing (though perfectly functional) two buttons (which I'm trying to overcome my dislike of).The MX also had depth-of-field preview ... A camera for the more serious photographer, in other words ... ! :-))
maria.benitezmontero (49 months ago | reply)
I love the Pentax!
Using a lens like that which has the camera on my Pentax K100D
eyewashdesign: A. Golden (49 months ago | reply)
I love the fact you have diary documentation to go with this image.
josepmaria (49 months ago | reply)
I owned the same Asahi Pentax. I loved it!
That's why I'm still a Pentax fan. Now with a k10d.
diesmali (49 months ago | reply)
wow, nostalgia! Nicely captured :)
paul (england) (48 months ago | reply)
Yes, it is great that you can put this lens on a brand-new Pentax DSLR and have a perfect 75mm (?) f/1.7 lens. (The downside of that is that good Pentax prime lenses still aren't cheap on eBay.)
Linda Zinter (48 months ago | reply)
What sweet memories!