Since I was around thirteen years old I took an interest in photography. First I used a simple Kodak 116 box camera and later a 120 "Cresta", and I did the B+W developing and printing myself. As I grew up, however, I had less and less time and money! In the 1970's I bought a used Praktica and some great Zeiss lenses, and my interest grew once again. I hankered for a decent waistlevel camera; the WLF of my Praktica FX3 was too small. Nikon was too expensive, and in any case I wanted European equipment. Then, around 1977, I found a little Exa with an auto 50mm Tessar in Cape Town. It had the biggest and clearest waistlevel finder imaginable ... the colors just jumped at one through the thick condenser glass! It took GREAT slides. Then, back in Pretoria, all my photo equipment were stolen in a burglary. I was despondent and did nothing photographical for quite a while. Eventually, in 1995, again in Cape Town, I found a nice Version 4 Exa. I got a similar one through Jessop, England, and added a Version 6. To go with the 3 bodies I now have the following lenses: 2 preset 50mm/f2.9 Ludwig Meritars (nice for soft-rounded pictures); 1 auto 50mm/f2.8 Zeiss Tessar (sharp, excellent also for macro work); an auto 20mm/f4 Zeiss Flektogon (fantastic!); a preset Meyer 30mm/f3.5 Lydith (contrasty and sharp); a preset 35mm/f4.5 Meyer Primagon (nice as a softer "normal" lens; great for moody nature contre-jour shots); a preset 100mm/f2.8 Meyer Trioplan (great all-rounder, as well as portrait lens; soft and plastic when open; sharp when closed down to f8-f11 ... probably my best-liked lens, apart from the 20mm Flektogon); two preset T2 180mm/f3.5 Soligors (sharp and contrasty); preset 250mm/f5.5 Meyer Telemegor with tripod collar (too soft for birds; great for moody nature shots); and a preset T2 400mm/f6.3 Soligor (sharp and contrasty). YES, I can use these long lenses with the Exas without image cut-off and with a top shutter speed of only 1/150 second!!! I mount the camera/lens on a tripod, weigh them down with an old (clean!) sock filled with glass marbles (which I drape over the camera-lens combination), and use a cable release. I have a set of Exakta extension tubes as well as various close-up lenses, an excellent automatic Auto-Teleplus 2x converter; plain ground-glass waist-level finders versions 3 and 6 (the latter useless as the picture image is too small) and a pentaprism finder with rangefinder central spot; my hand-held lightmeter is an old Sekonic Zone meter. The other day an assistant in a camera shop asked me what was hanging around my neck. "A light meter", I said. "What do you do with it?" he asked. "I measure the brightness of the light", I replied. "Why?" he asked. Signs of the times! I use the waist-level finder version 3 about 80% of the time, and the prism for the remaining 20%. Nothing beats the beauty of looking down into the bright, big and contrasty waist-level finder! My other camera is a point-and-shoot Olympus Stylus 35-70 zoom, which I use when I am with people (family!) who do not have patience or appreciation for my Exas. But as for myself, happiness is a long lazy day in nature with my beloved Exas and their wonderful lenses.