Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LensWork" data-source="post: 18042" data-attributes="member: 1283">My first camera that was mine, not borrowed from my dad or from school, was an Argus C3, that was about 1975. Then in '77 I got my first Nikon, a Nikkormat FT-3, but within a few months Canon introduced the AE-1, and I traded the FT-3 for an AE-1; HUGE mistake. Within a couple of weeks, the AE-1 died, and when I attempted to return it to the store from where I purchased it, they did not have any in-stock, and I was told that they would have to send it back to Canon for repair, and that would take somewhere from a few weeks, to a few months as there were many, many issues with the new AE-1. Well that would just not do, I needed a camera IMMEDIATELY for school, so I walked out, leaving the dead AE-1 on the counter, went to a different store a bought a Nikon FM, and rest, as they say, is history.I will admit that over the last 30+ years I have occasionally went over to "the dark side" and dabbled with other brands; there was the Contax RTS-II in '86 or '87. The Zeiss glass was simply amazing, but also amazingly expensive, so back to Nikon. In '89 I was shooting for the S.F. Giants, and others in the Bay area, and Canon loaned me some of their new EOS cameras and lenses to try. While shooting a practice session for the inaugural NASCAR race at Sears Point, I had a Canon RT with a 400mm lens set-up for remote firing in turn 6 (no longer used during NASCAR races) when Richard Petty missed a downshift and detonated his engine/transmission, sending parts and pieces everywhere. The shrapnel killed the RT and put a big dent in the hood of the 400. You should have seen the Canon rep's face when I gave him back the gear <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown    :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /> .At the time of the Rodney King riots in L.A.(1992), Minolta had loaned me a couple of Maxxum 9000's and some lenses for evaluation. Not bad gear, but not Nikon. Then early in 2007, Canon was making a big push to get the Nikon pro shooters that had not already switched to Canon to convert to the EOS system, and they offered many a direct swap of two their new EOS-1 MkIII's, up to three pro lenses and a pro speedlite for our old Nikon D2H's, lenses and flashes. I tried the Canon's, and while the image quality certainly was better than my D2H, I just did not like the feel and handling of the Canons. Some photojournalists I know took the deal, but every one of them regretted it when just a few months later, Nikon announced the D3.There have been others over the years (Hasselblad, Bronica, Pentax 645,  Crown Graphic 4X5), but in terms of 35mm/DSLR, with the noted short term  exceptions above, its been Nikon for me for the last 34 years. In that time I've owned: FM, F2A, F2H, F3HP, F3P, F4/s, F5, FM3a, D1H, D2H, D300, D3 & D700's.</blockquote>

Verification