My earliest "serious" camera was a circa 1930 folding Zeiss Ikon 6x4.5cm of my dad's. Taking a picture was an interesting process:

• Open the hatch on the front of the camera
• Extend the lens on its leather bellows
• Set the aperature (f-stop) on the lens
• Set the shutter speed (fraction of a second) on the lens
• Set the focus on the lens
• Cock the lens
  
• Frame the shot
• Release the shutter
• Open a little shutter covering a pair of small red windows on the back of the camera
• Turn a knob on the top of the camera to either move the frame number to the next window or move the next frame number to the first window
• Close the back shutter to reduce the risk of light leak fogging the film
• Recock for next picture, having made necessary adjustments to any settings
• Or, collapse bellows and close hatch and put camera back in pocket

Over the years that followed, the succession of cameras generally sought to automate at least some of those tasks while not compromising too much on image quality or size of camera.

Sometimes I was happy to just have a compact convenient camera. Other times I wanted to be able to reach out with telephoto or spread my grasp for wide angle.

The GN U-25B set in Edmonds, above right, was taken about 1966 with the Zeiss. The German BR 50 in Bremerhaven, at left, was circa 1971 with a Pentax Spotmatic.