I'm old enough to remember when an entry-level camera was essentially the most basic model in a range. And, I mean basic with a capital 'B'. My first serious camera – purchased when I was in my early teens, with some financial assistance from my parents, was one of the most basic 35mm SLRs on the market at the time. The Praktica L2 didn’t even have a built-in exposure meter and, being made in the then East Germany, it was a bit of a clunker… but it did work.
When I upgraded a few years later it, was to the Fujica ST605, the entry-level model to the Fujica line-up of the 35mm SLRs in the late 1970s. The big deal for me was that it had built-in metering, but it was still a fully-mechanical, fully-manual camera.
