Nikon F circa 1970
Cameras to me have never been objects of desire regards ownership. In fact I was a professional photographer for six years before I started buying my own gear. Why own my own when I could just 'borrow' the studio's kit whenever I wanted? Cameras are just tools. My first camera was a Nikon F bought second hand in 1970. I still have it, and it still works perfectly today. It's in pretty good nick and, despite the dent in the pentaprism I've seen far worse examples. They built these cameras tough, to last a lifetime.
My second Nikon was this F3 bought in 1981 and Oh! The torment of worry that new-fangled battery dependancy brought! I remember being concerned that the LCD display may fail ... and if the battery went, all I had left was a manual 60th of a second to fall back upon. But I never once had a problem. Look at the sides of the camera and you can see how the paint has been worn away from use. This camera worked hard for me and never let me down. Not until I strapped it underneath a radio controlled helicopter in 1993 and the pilot lost control at fifty feet. That killed it. I've never bothered to try and fix it, but it might be fixable. The 'copter was completely smashed but this camera, as you can see, is mostly intact.
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