| I first became interested in photography almost forty years ago, when my first husband taught me to use his Edixa (the German version with Schneider lenses, not the later Japanese model) SLR. He then bought me a Russian-made Zenith SLR, and I was hooked! The Zenith was very basic in design, with absolutely no frills - no TTL metering here, and certainly no such thing as autofocus! However it served me faithfully for years, and if the pics I took with it would never have won any awards, at least it never failed me and continued to operate reliably in the most unforgiving conditions. It also taught me about exposure and light metering; I used a Weston Master V which was one of the most reliable on the market at the time. I shot mainly transparency film as in those days the quality of prints from all but professional labs (way beyond my means in those days) was not that great; Agfa was my preferred make, with the occasional bold excursion into the world of Kodachrome. This photo of my friend Sue was one of the earliest I took with my old Zenith, using Agfachrome 50 ISO (or ASA as it was then) transparency film and available light. I recently scanned it and converted it to B & W as shown here. 
In the end, through misuse rather than any fault of its own, the Zenith died and for some years I managed without an SLR, making do with the Halina compact that was all I could afford at the time. After several SLR-less years I finally managed to acquire a Praktica that was not much more sophisticated than the Zenith but did have a rudimentary form of TTL metering. The pic below is one I took of my late father in 1983. 
A couple of years after the above photo was taken, I was in a position to splash out a bit on a decent camera, so I got myself an Olympus OM2 with a spot-metering facility. Zoom lenses in those days were generally inferior to prime lenses, so in addition to the Olympus's 50mm standard lens I got myself a 35mm wide-angle lens and a 135mm telephoto. Enthusiasm rekindled, I photographed anything and everything. The picture below is of Brian, taken in St Petersburg in 1985; by this time I had discovered the excellent qualities of Fujichrome. 
Brian on the Dalmatian island of Korčula, 1986. This was also taken using Fujichrome ASA 50 I also rediscovered the joys of photographing animals; as we had a number of dogs and cats over the next few years, I had plenty of subjects to hand, such as our old Dobermann Cooper and his favourite cat, Ommy. 
However, when it came to photographing horses the Olympus, while an excellent camera, revealed its limitations. When trying to capture horses moving at anything faster than a slow trot I found that by the time I had twiddled knobs and fiddled with manual focus, the moment had passed. Yes, I know that in some circumstances, such as when photographing, say, showjumping, you can pre-focus on the point where the horse is going to jump. But this technique has its limits - for example when the animal is moving erratically. I also found that I desperately needed the freedom that comes with a zoom lens. Still shots were OK..... 
....as were those of slow movements...this shows me with my Arabian gelding Zareeba, then aged three, at his very first show - Bridlington Horse Pageant, 1991. |