a look back at cameras in the Christmas wishbooks

[rtphokie]

Remember the "Wishbook" put out each year by Sears and JC Penny? I ran across a website that has a dozen of these catalogs scanned in page by page from 1944 through 1985.

Maybe some of you had some of these cameras:

From The 1976 JC Penny catalog

From the 1985 Sears Wishbook

 

[DVC Jen]

Omgosh! LOLOL Dh bought an older slr from a friend of his and gave it to me for Christmas. It is a Canon A-1 - looks exactly like that AE-1.

I haven't used it much - but it is fun to play around with.

AND - my very first camera - was one of those pocket cameras like in the first pic - I think I used something like 110 film in it with a flash strip?

I feel old all of a sudden.

 

[AndrewWG]

Wow, they even used the nifty fifty back then! Shows how good that lens is. Probably built a bit better back then though.

 

[MICKEY88]

Wow, they even used the nifty fifty back then! Shows how good that lens is. Probably built a bit better back then though.

the standard lens for a 35mm camera is a 50mm, all cameras came with them..


a very high percentage of amateurs never bought another lens, it was only the more serious photographers, that bought additional lenses,

I'm not even sure that many zoom lenses existed in 76,, it was either the 50mm or a telephoto,

anyone with additional lenses had a 28mm for wideangle, the most popular telephoto was 135mm ,, then there were the big lenses that only pros could afford

 

[jann1033]

the standard lens for a 35mm camera is a 50mm, all cameras came with them..


a very high percentage of amateurs never bought another lens, it was only the more serious photographers, that bought additional lenses,

I'm not even sure that many zoom lenses existed in 76,, it was either the 50mm or a telephoto,

anyone with additional lenses had a 28mm for wideangle, the most popular telephoto was 135mm ,, then there were the big lenses that only pros could afford

well, some things never change

 

[MarkBarbieri]

the standard lens for a 35mm camera is a 50mm, all cameras came with them..


a very high percentage of amateurs never bought another lens, it was only the more serious photographers, that bought additional lenses,

I'm not even sure that many zoom lenses existed in 76,, it was either the 50mm or a telephoto,

anyone with additional lenses had a 28mm for wideangle, the most popular telephoto was 135mm ,, then there were the big lenses that only pros could afford

I think lenses D and E in the ad are zooms.

 

[Anewman]

AE1 program is from the mid 80s, and did have many zooms available.


My first real camera.

 

[MICKEY88]

I got my first slr in 1976,


and as I recall Vivitar was one of the first to make a zoom lens right around that time....

by the mid 80's there were more zooms...

 

[handicap18]

OH WOW!! I'm with you Jen. I feel old now.

If you look at the 1985 book, the few pages after the one posted above has the prices. 70-200mm lens: $90. Granted its not an f/2.8.

I was also going through the 1979 catalog. OMG! Electronic Touchdown! I had that!! WOW! It was $20 back then. Of course you have to check out the computers they were selling in 1985. 128K Ram. Big enough to hold 80 pages of double spaced pages. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

The '79 one is one I remember most. My cousin's and I went over every page of the toy section with a fine tooth comb at least 1,000 times. How about that Atari400 in 1979! Gutta love that $400 Microwave oven. On sale from the Spring Book. Save $90.

I never had the Canon AE-1 Program, but that is the camera I used in high school photo class from '86-88. My first real camera came out in 1985, but isn't in the book. The Canon T80. Came with a 35-70mm lens. I think I got it in 1986. It wasn't around very long. Before that I had a Kodak Disk and before that a Kodak 126.

 

[oogieboogieman]

That's the catalog I picked my graduation present from. I chose the AE-1 program with flash and zoom lens. I still have it and it works.

 

[Groucho]

The '79 one is one I remember most. My cousin's and I went over every page of the toy section with a fine tooth comb at least 1,000 times. How about that Atari400 in 1979! Gutta love that $400 Microwave oven. On sale from the Spring Book. Save $90.

My Dad, to my eternal joy, brought home an Atari 400 back in '78 or maybe '79... probably one of the best Christmas presents ever (though he and my Mom got a ton of use out of it!) I still have an Atari 130XE connected to my main TV.

I never had the Canon AE-1 Program, but that is the camera I used in high school photo class from '86-88. My first real camera came out in 1985, but isn't in the book. The Canon T80. Came with a 35-70mm lens. I think I got it in 1986. It wasn't around very long. Before that I had a Kodak Disk and before that a Kodak 126.

My wife's old Canon AE-1 is on our "camera shelf" along with the usual 50mm lens... but we're not real proud about a lowly Canon sharing shelf space with the other cameras.

Sears used to sell a rebadged Pentax SLR under their own name... I'm not sure if they had other brands, also. You do still see Sears-branded Pentax-mount lens come up for sale fairly regularly on eBay and elsewhere. I have none in my collection though and I don't think there was anywhere particularly exciting so it'll probably stay that way.

 

[Gdad]

Ha! I had to get it off the shelf and blow the dust off it. My 2nd SLR. (The 1st was an Argus C4)

 

[MICKEY88]

My Dad, to my eternal joy, brought home an Atari 400 back in '78 or maybe '79... probably one of the best Christmas presents ever (though he and my Mom got a ton of use out of it!) I still have an Atari 130XE connected to my main TV.


My wife's old Canon AE-1 is on our "camera shelf" along with the usual 50mm lens... but we're not real proud about a lowly Canon sharing shelf space with the other cameras.

Sears used to sell a rebadged Pentax SLR under their own name... I'm not sure if they had other brands, also. You do still see Sears-branded Pentax-mount lens come up for sale fairly regularly on eBay and elsewhere. I have none in my collection though and I don't think there was anywhere particularly exciting so it'll probably stay that way.

I have the sears/pentax, with a few lenses, it wasn't mine it was my fathers, I inherited it, since I'm the family photographer..

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

That's the catalog I picked my graduation present from. I chose the AE-1 program with flash and zoom lens. I still have it and it works.

Ah, yes, but that's not the WHOLE story, is it?

Oogieboogieman is my DH.

He gave the camera to his friend YEARS ago. Just before our 2nd trip to WDW in October, 2005 he decided to get it back. His friend had to dig it out of storage. DH had it reconditioned, then dragged it to WDW along with all sorts of film and other stuff that weighed as much as a small child. When we got the film developed we discovered the camera has a light leak, which DH argues is only with one lens, but the photos have big red streaks down them. We have 2 digital point & shoot cameras (a Canon and a Nikon) but he wasn't interested in those.

This summer DH decided to start lobbying for a dSLR, which resulted in the Black Friday purchase of the Olympus. Stay tuned for photos from the Olympus. DH's post count isn't high enough to allow photos!

 

[0bli0]

...When we got the film developed we discovered the camera has a light leak, which DH argues is only with one lens, but the photos have big red streaks down them.

hey - light leaks are in fashion now!





btw the 50 above is quite a bit different than the nifty fifty. the one above is FD mount - 6 aperture blades, 6 elements in 4 groups. the nifty fifty is 5 aperture blades, 6 elements in 4 groups, is a few mm smaller diameter, and can focus closer.

as discussed above, most cameras came with either 35mm or 50mm lenses as they were close to the 'standard' focal distance. 'standard' gives the same field of view as our eyes see the world. this is best determined by the diagonal measurement across the film (or sensor's) surface. for 35mm film, it's about 42mm.

 

[Michele]

Finally dragged out the old one I bought for DH as a wedding present in 1987. It is the T50 shown. But I got the body only. The 2 lenses we have are both Vivitar, 28-70mm and 70-210mm, both Macro Focusing Zoom lenses.

I mostly remember this camera taking really bad pictures, but that was probably user error, neither one of us knew how to use it. I just popped a role of film into it to see what it will do now. I only know a teensy bit more about how to use it now. I should start with something I never did back then, read the manual.