I started photography with Nikons—first with an N65, and moving there to an N90S before finally grabbing what I thought was the pinnacle of photography: the Nikon F5. I bought a well-used copy on eBay, and…how couldn’t I? NASA used the F5 on shuttle missions!

I was in my second semester of a photography major with the F5 when it gave up the ghost. The mirror wouldn’t return to position after taking a shot, so I had to remove the lens, flip the mirror back in place, and reattach the lens. A hassle. I replaced the F5 with a D200, and have probably 40,000 frames on that and various digital bodies since.

I gave up the major but never looked back on photography. But I always missed film and the nothing-short-of-magic chemical process that nets an image. I missed the wait of going through an entire roll of film and a development process before knowing if the shots were any good.

So after a few years of casually browsing eBay, I’m back at it. After reading a few recent articles on popular photography blogs proclaiming that there’s no better time to get into medium format film photography, I was convinced. I got a near-mint Mamiya 645 Pro TL with the AE metering finder and an 80mm ƒ2.8 lens. I’m sending the film to labs now for processing, but soon I’ll get all the equipment (again) to do it at home.

I won’t be selling off any of the Nikons. Just adding to the collection.