Shooting film today for the first time in decades was a refreshing treat. First, I had to relearn how to use a film camera – I picked up an inexpensive used Nikkormat FT2 and a 50mm pre-AI lens. Yesterday was the learning curve of figuring out how to mount the lens and index it to the meter.

The Nikkormat FT2 uses Nikon’s older mechanical meter-coupling system — the “rabbit ears” prong found on pre-AI lenses — so “calibrating” here really means indexing the lens to the meter, not any kind of electronic calibration. The process: mount the lens, aligning the index dots and locking it in place, then set the aperture ring to its smallest opening (highest f-number). From there, rotate the ring from smallest to largest aperture while making sure the prong properly engages the fork on the camera’s meter coupling ring, feeling it catch and turn smoothly through the full range.

A quick sanity check — setting a known aperture like f/8 and comparing the meter needle against a handheld meter or Sunny 16 — confirms it’s reading correctly. If the needle doesn’t track right, the prong likely isn’t seated, and it’s back to remounting and trying again.

Not only was there a bit of a learning curve, but there was some added nostalgia in working through it with a co-worker — swapping stories about the old film days, laughing about how a 76 battery is now an LR44.

The nostalgia continued this morning, my first day of shooting film in maybe 30 years. Carefully looking for an image to create, I found myself thinking about the cost of each frame in a way digital never demands, and remembering all over again the technical limitations of a film camera compared to what I’m used to now.

The FT2 tops out at a shutter speed of 1/1000, and working with a fixed film speed of 400 — rather than the variable ISO I’m used to on a digital body — was a real adjustment. Some scenes were simply too bright to photograph within those constraints. At f/16, 1/1000, and ISO 400, the lens’s limits (f/2 to f/16) left me with a few situations that needed less light than the camera could give me — faster shutter speeds, lower ISOs, or stopping down to f/22 weren’t options this body and lens could offer.

I’ve been using manual focus lenses on my digital cameras for a few years now, so the mechanics weren’t unfamiliar — but I’ve grown grateful for focus peaking on my mirrorless bodies, and today I found myself missing it. The FT2 relies on a split-image spot at the center of the viewfinder: the image appears split in half and misaligned until you turn the focus ring to bring it into perfect alignment, a method that’s precise on straight lines and edges but takes some patience without any electronic assist confirming the moment it’s sharp.

Tomorrow, I’ll bring an ND filter, a polarizing filter, and some B&W filters — red, orange, yellow, and green.