Thanks! Here's the first of the series, with the 5 year old. I haven't previously posted it, as there's no analog element in the image. (Moderators - please advise if inappropriate for the forum, and I'll remove it). My grandson is using a Fuji X100...
The take-away here is not that there are digital images in your post; the take-away is that even five year olds have better digital cameras than me.
It's a first generation X100, made in 2011 so far as I can tell, and I bought it used from my local camera shop, but still not an inexpensive choice. Certainly a lot better than what I started with. When I was my grandson's age, I had a Kodak Starlet 127, $9.95 in 1959 dollars or about $85 today, and a roll of film per month.
As with other Filmwasters, finding an appropriate starter camera for an interested child is not easy. My primary criteria were an optical or eye-level viewfinder, prime or limited zoom-range lens, and compact size.
I looked for a couple of years hoping to find something roughly equivalent, and periodically hound the local Fuji rep to propose a "My First Fuji" X10 replacement, optimized for children, but ran out of time. I ruled out Instax at this point due to the cost per image. I had toyed with an entry-level DSLR, but even small ones like the Nikon 3000-series and Canon SL-1 are quite large for small hands. A salesperson at another shop I frequent suggested a "superzoom" ILR, but thought that the zoom would be a distraction from the process of learning to "see" through the viewfinder. When I couldn't delay any longer and needed to make a decision, the X100 met the criteria and was cost-effective enough versus film and processing over a couple of years.
He's a responsible kid, has bonded with the camera, and has a much better eye than I had at 3x his age, so it's turned out to be a worthwhile investment for him. As it is, there's a closet full of cameras waiting for the grandkids to inherit as they get older and it's fun to watch them learn the craft.
