I took my first photos in the 1950's with my mother's Kodak™ Brownie™. When I was 12, I saved up money and bought a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye™ at a downtown Pittsburgh drugstore. Our film was always 620, and rarely color.
While writing for the Donora Herald-American and later doing sports information at Thiel College in the 60's, I learned to use a Speed Graphic™ with 4x5 sheet film.
The first time I ever used a TTL 35mm was an Exacta™ with Carl Zeiss™ glass that belonged to Thiel. I much preferred the quality of the 4x5 images, but came to realize that economically I would never be able to afford the equipment and supplies.
After I found color while using inexpensive 110 snapshot cameras for over a decade, Linda and the girls gave me a Canon™
AE-1™ in 1978. When trifocals made it tougher and tougher to get sharp focus, Linda gave me the Rebel™ in 1996, and I passed on the AE-1 to daughter Cheryl.