My very first camera was given to me by my parents before we went to Disney World in 1985. It was one of those Kodak instant cameras. After having it for a couple of months, Kodak lost a lawsuit with Polaroid and had to stop producing them and the film they used. I was crushed. Later, in high school when I started to get really into taking pictures, they gave me a Pentax K1000 with a 28-80mm zoom. It was my first SLR and “real” camera. I loved it and it served my well for about 4 or 5 years. I still have it in a box somewhere actually.
During my second year in college, when I realized that taking photographs was something I was going to be doing the rest of my life, I decided to step up to a professional camera. I talked to some of my teachers and the general opinion was that I should look into a used Nikon F3. I went to several camera stores around town in St. Louis and found a shop that had two in stock. There was a black F3 HP, and a somewhat rare F3/T HP in the Champaign finish. This one caught my eye. It was $800. For me in 1995, that was way out of my price range. I went home and talked to the parents, who had bought me my first two cameras. They reminded me that I still had money in my college fund. I went to the bank the next day and cleaned it out and bought the F3/T HP in Champaign.
That camera was what I used through the rest of college, helping me earn my BFA. Then, a couple of months before finishing grad school, it was stolen from my car in Willimantic, CT right in front of my house. I was crushed again. I moved on to my Contax G2, then my beloved Leica M3 and the Nikon D80…but every once in a while I wish I still had the F3. I have been looking around on Ebay recently and the model I had is rarer than I thought. I have actually never seen another one anywhere, other than the one I had, except in pictures. They come up every now and then, but are expensive. Seems as though you can still find nice F3 HPs for a reasonable price though…it’s quite tempting. I’m fighting the urge to grab one right now.
