What cameras did you use in the late 80s and early 90s?

Canon AE-1 and 50/1.8

I also had a pair of Hoya telephotos - 135/2.8 and 200/4 - that saw very occasional use as I wasn’t the photographer I thought when I was a teenager and my grandfather bought me the camera.

At some point, I also bought a second hand FD 28/2.8 and 85/1.8.

The Hoya lenses disappeared after my big Africa trip, as 7 months of dust and sand in a rucksack did for them. One of them actually broke into two pieces.
 
AntonioC said:
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But I hardly had any money to get film developed, as I was living as a student on bread and (very little) cheese 😅
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I remember those days - every roll had to be rationed. My youngest is a student and she has an old Olympus mju-2 and steals film from my stash. I let her pay for her own developing.

I also just gave her an old Panasonic LX5 to supplement. She seems to like having both to choose from.
 
In 1982 I got interested in photography and was given a Practica LLC with a 50/1.8 Pancolar which wouldn’t focus correctly and a 135/3.5 Hanimex which I used exclusively for the next year. Learned a lot about using a short tele as my only lens. In 1983, it was time to acquire my dream, a Nikon FE-2 and I decided on a 55/2.8 Micro instead of the 50/1.4 which opened up the world of close up photography to me, instead of the tele world I had become accustomed to.
Still have both of those pieces, but the Practica went the way of the wind.
 
Around 1985 I got divorced; a bitter-sweet moment in my life. I was broke because of the settlement but I had a good paying job so I was not down-and-out. Not wanting to cry more than necessary… I bought 2 things, a Miyata bicycle (they weren't so expensive then) and a point-&-shoot Fujifilm camera; a new life had begun.

I rode the bicycle everywhere and took pictures with my Fuji P&S to mail to my parents to show them that I was okay after the divorce (this is what people did before the internet and blogs and YT and TT… whatever, etc.).

I met a girl, I started playing tennis (because she played tennis… tennis anyone? halleluiah I wasn’t lonely anymore) I bought a Canon F1.

I bought a Canon F1 - this was a big deal back then!

I married my tennis girlfriend (still happily married after all these years) but I haven’t played tennis since we got married.

I bought a second Canon F1 body… by this time it was much more expensive than the first F1 camera I bought. However, it was nice to be able to have two F1 camera bodies with different films for my photo excursions. Yes, we called them “excursions” because back then going out to take “pictures” was an event for us!

I should have been happy with my Canon F1 stuff but somehow I got the idea in my head that a Pentax 6X7 was what I really needed to make me happy.

I made the phone call to B&H with my credit card in hand… (still pre-internet shopping days) and I bought a Pentax 6X7 plus a couple of lenses.

Well, this takes me up to Y2K so I guess that’s the end of the story based on the parameters of the thread. However, I am still happily married to my tennis girl and I no longer have any film cameras. The End.
 
Canadian black M4-2 and 50 Summicron in 1986. It was lighter and less precious than the M4 and 50 Summilux it replaced. I no longer used a case and it was perfectly balanced and fitted like a glove and it took me up a couple of notches in my ability. My first child and her entertainments saw me trade the body for an M6 with the in-built meter. It was a good move. But even that was not enough for me to keep up with her and I switched to a 35 Summicron in 1995 or 1996. I bought my wife an Olympus Mju 2 and that was a clever point and shoot which I used occasionally too.
 
Back in the early 70s I was using an Alpa Model 7 and 50mm Kern Switar with a Dalmeyer 135mm Dalrac together with extension tubes filters all bought for £88.
In those days Alpa were not highly regarded in fact as you see they called it an Alpha and Dollonds were a very reputable dealer.flood 2.jpg
 
This was the period I was working for a daily newspaper. Almost everything was Nikon--F, F2, F3, FM. I also had Leica M4-P and Mamiya C330. I still have a couple of the F2's but they've not been used in decades.
 
The last brand new camera I bought was Minolta XD-11 around 1984. It was a great camera and probably all I would have ever needed but in 1990 I bought a used Leica M3 DS which started me on a journey of many more cameras, lenses and accessories
 
My first job out of technical school in 1986 for less than a year was as a camera repair technician at Olympus USA.
I brought in my Nikon FM and FTN Photomic bodies to check them on the shutter/exposure testers.
My Japanese trainer was not at all pleased but another American technician was a longtime fellow Nikon user.

Later when those bodies were stolen I replaced them with a brand new Nikon FM2N.
I sold that body along with all my camera gear around 1990 when I lost interest in photography.

I caught the photo bug once again around the time of the new millennium.

Chris
 
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I got a Praktica BMS with the Prakticar 50f1.8 in 1993. A year later I added a Prakticar 28-70f3.5-4.5 which was mediocre.
The camera worked well until 1996 when -if left unused for more than a day- the first picture will be shot at 1sec no matter what speed you had selected.
I worked around that by adjusting exposure to 1/60th (mechanical speed) and removed battery. It survived a couple of falls but in 1998 it went down a hill on a tripod and never recovered.

I bought a canon eos5 them which I still have and use.
 
Nikkormats, initially FTNs, then ELs, eventually FT2s. I still have the latter, I use them now and then and they just go on working.

Four F-mount Nikkors - 28/3.5, 35/2.0, 50/2.0, 135/3.5. I still own the first three, but I gave away the 135 to a friend a few years ago as I hadn't used it for more than twenty years.

A Rolleiflex 3.5E2 I bought in 1966, now a little worn round the edges (much like its owner) and with a small bubble of separation in the Planar, but it still gives me great slides.

Two Rolleiflex Ts I bought as impulse purchases as I found I liked the Tessar lens 'rendition' more than the Planar for my B&W work. They are lighter and smaller than my 3.5E2 and with 16 exposure kits they give super good results with economic film 'mileage'.

A Zeiss Nettar 6x6 I bought some time in the early '70s. Ditto a Voigtlander Perkeo I. Both found in secondhand shops. Fun to take out when I go bush walking and don't want to carry a lot of heavy gear.

My life was so much simpler back then. I concentrated entirely on making good images. And I didn't have web sites like RFF to distract me and make me write endless paragraphs about how and why I photograph.

Today is still okay, but ah, those good old days, I miss them.
 
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