but I loved macro photography from the outset, so I jumped from the Fujica to a Nikkormat with the 55 mm. macro/normal lens.

To do so with a Leica would have required a Visoflex reflex housing and a 65 mm. Elmar lens, making it an SLR.

So I got the SLR.

The M4 must have been fun!

I was working for a small newspaper at the time, and I still remember, I paid $750 for it new with an F2-35mm Leitz lens. It was about 1968

I still have an old Leica lens brochure from 1969.

That said, the Nikkor 35mm. f/2 was and is pretty wonderful as well.

Here's the "centerfold" for the lens from that brochure.

THE KODAK BROWNIE CAMERA: THE CAMERA THAT BROUGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE MASSES

https://www.artisanobscura.com/photographyblog/2024/1/19/the-kodak-brownie-camera-the-camera-that-brought-photography-to-the-masses

I scanned the photos and have been processing them to restore the "original" scenes.

Did get some GREAT ones, from ?Jr. High age trip to the west; Jenny Lake, for one!

Spits it out and wave it around presto, there's a picture.
They may be faded after time but many of ours are
still ok.

Tickets to the car raffle my then church did every year. I was probably in the 2nd grade so I don't remember much else about it except it must have been a cheap piece of crap.

My all-time favorite camera was my first 135mm camera, a small point and shoot Olympus I got in 1981.

was an Olympus OM1.

on the DMZ, in and around Panmunjom, wore it out in 3 years and graduated to the Nikon F2