Originally posted by Aristophanes As an older teenager into photography in the early 1980's Pentax was like Oldsmobile: grandpa's brand. Despite innovations and firsts, Pentax really never shook that label for a younger crowd. Canon and Minolta were where the new tech was; they were the TransAms of cameras (not necessarily a good thing). Nikon was the pro stuff but sort of fuddy duddy and precious arrogant with brutally expensive glass. The Olympus OM series was showing its age. Contax and others were weird and most often over-priced. My "quaint" camera was a dear Rollei 35RS from Germany my mother gave me to match hers. At first I thumbed my nose at it (zone focusing...who cares?) but after about a year I realized that my skills had increased to the point where I could tell the camera what to do with assurance and did not need to rely on AF. Ironically, that's when cameras got cheaper for me!
It'sa good point about MF and the wedding crowd, but that was going on well before the boom in the 1980's 120 scene with Mamiya and Rollei all jumping in along with Pentax and of course, Hasselblad. I live in a neighborhood now where I have no less than 4 houses on one 2 block stretch with built-in 1980's darkrooms and studios where 120 was the thing as a hobby, not wedding biz. 35mm was for the mini-lab crowd. My photographer teacher in high school insisted we all shoot 135 while he shot MF!
I *lived* for photo and skateboarding magazines from about 1978 to 1988.
I'm probably 10 years older than you, and everyone's parents had shot 120 (it was pretty much all there was beyond 35mm RF) but Pentax (and Nikon and later oly OM series) got them all to change, same went polaroid as well, that's how Pentax got to 10 million SLRs before everyone else
My first SLR in 73 was a Zenit, replaced by a K1000, by 78 i was shooting with a Nikon F kit I got an amazing price on from an old hippy who needed some cash (2 bodies, MD, Bulk Back, Flash, 20,28,35,50,135,200 all fast glass) for $600 (damn i should have kept it I sold it on for $900 when i needed cash lol)
later I moved into Canon with the FD mount. the Eos change made me nuts, my Canon gear got stolen so i used the insurance dough to move back to Pentax (largely due to the idea of all the old glass working - though i never really got crazy for it until i went digital, AF was just to convenient) Funnily enough Digital has had me moving backwards more, I have more film gear than i ever had in multiple formats and body types with a large number of lenses to support it all. My first MF (aside from some old folders when i was young) were bought in the digital age (always wanted MF but could never justify the cost for what had become a hobby i had little time for due to a career that sucked up all my time- leaving that is what got me back into photography)