This (above) is the Nikon FM2(n), manufactured in Japan from 1982-2001. In 1995, it would have cost you $775. The film camera was sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s Leica.”
I bought one for peanuts on e-Bay a few years ago, still in its original sealed package, and later acquired a number of lenses for it, including a 300mm telephoto. The one in the picture is a 28mm wide angle, which I liked to use while pretending to be a famous French photographer such as Henri Cartier-Bresson or Robert Doisneau. In fact, I took it with me on a trip to Paris. Somehow my pictures, although technically correct, didn’t look like theirs.
When I bought the FM2(n), the soon-to-be nationally known photographer Chuck Kimmerle was working with me at the University of North Dakota. One day, I showed him my “new” FM2(n).
Chuck reached into a desk drawer and pulled out one identical to mine.
Shooting with film and getting it processed and printed without your own darkroom isn’t easy these days.
But there’s a camera shop that still processes film not far from our home in Bloomington, Minn. It will produce prints for you, or you can do it yourself with a scanner.
So, every now and then, I leave my digital cameras at home and take some pictures the old0fashioned way.
