I'm Back Shooting Film!

After seeing the history of Nikon online, fond memories of my first camera as a child came to mind. It was a black film SLR. The camera was a Nikon FE, a hand-me-down from an uncle. So I thought it would be awesome to find and own my original camera. After some research and failed bids on eBay, I got my hands on a mint black FE2, an upgraded version of the Nikon FE. This post will mark my shift back to film photography. It was a rather slow re-learning process, but I finally got my workflow set from shooting, selecting a lab to develop film, and scanning the film to digital—the most cumbersome step in the process.

It may be worth noting that I got started in photography as a 12-year-old and practiced it with the help of a book about photography entitled: "The Complete Kodak Book of Photography." I then started to understand what I was doing and how exposure, composition, and the tools of photography could improve my craft. The bug bit, and that was history.

So in a way, I have gone full circle, starting with 35mm film and holding almost the same exact camera in my hands today.

Allow me to introduce the newest (old & very old) members of my photography family...

The mother of all Folding cameras: Zeiss Ikon Super in 120. Also mint but a pain in the behind to shoot... but tell me that isn't a beauty!

If you can shoot with a TLR- Twin Lens Reflex, you can shoot with perhaps anything with the exception of "strobist" lighting. If you find that even mildy funny, then you belong to the "older" of the "younger" photographers.

Brother's collection. Fast forward today 2017, I have a small collection myself.

Nikon FE2 with a MD15 Motor drive attached. The motor drive is cutting edge back in the day- allows you to shoot maybe a frame a second without manual rewinding film... LOL! Smartphones can take 100 shots and combines it to one image to compensate for the tiny sensor and lens.

Modern Digital cameras manage about 10-30 frames/ second today.

Nikon F100 Film camera with a battery grip. Other than the fact it shoots film, this is arguably the most advanced film camera Nikon has made. Therefore camera functions would be very similar to a modern DSLR.