5 Frames with a Nikonos V and Rollei 400 Infrared film in the dust of Burning Man 2025

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to the concept of Burning Man. Maybe it’s from growing up with Mad Max films, maybe it’s a love for Frank Herbert and the Dune novels, or maybe it’s just a deep down love of self-deprecation and extreme survival. In any event, the stars finally aligned last year and I had the opportunity to finally attend Burning Man where I embarked on a solo cross-country trip from Florida to Black Rock City, Nevada – the ephemeral and makeshift city where Burning Man has been held each year since 1990.  

The Camera 

Preparing for Burning Man is part of the event itself – preparations can easily take 6-8 months depending on one’s previous “Burns” – or experiences; however, the one thing I knew immediately was that I was going to document my trip on one of my favorite cameras – the Nikonos V. There’s no shortage of documentation and reviews on the indestructibility of this legendary camera, but I thought Burning Man would be the ultimate test of this camera’s iconic imperviousness. One of the “10 Principles of Burning Man” is “Radical Self-Reliance”. In this vein, I needed to ensure redundancy in everything that I prepared. This included my camera and film. There are three things that photographic film really hates – dust, water and heat – and these are the major environmental characteristics of Burning Man. To ensure redundancy, I actually used Burning Man as an excuse to procure a second Nikonos V in the event my primary camera became unusable. This was actually a great opportunity to pick-up the olive green model of this camera. This proved to be invaluable as my primary Nikonos became saturated in mud after the first day thanks to the widely-reported rain and windstorms. I ended up using the backup camera almost the entire trip. 

The Lens

I opted to take two copies (redundancy!) of the trustworthy 35mm f2.5 W-Nikkor Amphibious lens as I knew most of the trip would be spent documenting the immense scale of Black Rock Deseret – or the Playa – and all the included artscapes. I also brought a copy of the Nikkor 80mm f4 Nikonos lens in the event I needed to get closer to subjects during more crowded events such as the Man Burn (giant party on Saturday night) and Temple Burn (more somber event on Sunday night). 

The Film

Additionally, after having recently watched the Dune: Part II film, I was inspired by the high contrast black and white scenes from Giedi Prime – the scene with the arena fighting. I wanted  to achieve similar otherworldly characteristics of my photos at Burning Man. Therefore, I selected Rollei 400 Infrared as the only film that I would bring with me, due to its flexibility for both infrared and non-infrared as well as it’s latitude across varying speeds. I knew I would have no shortage of sunlight to work with in the desert, but half of Burning Man is the epic nightlife and I wanted to ensure I could still shoot once the sun goes down. 

The Accessories

I brought a variety of filters that I could attach to the often-overlooked Nikonos lens hood, but found that I predominately used an orange filter to capture my shots. This allowed me to maintain workable shutter speeds to shoot hand-held, but also provided the dramatic contrast that I hoped to achieve in my photos. As a bonus, the filter provided an additional shield against the contact barrage of dust, rain, and eventual mud. I also brought a copy of the Nikonos 80mm optical viewfinder to use in parallel with the 80mm lens. 

Conclusions / Lessons Learned

After almost 10-days of constant usage and unrelenting elements, my Nikonos V performed flawlessly at Burning Man. Not only was I able to achieve some of my favorite images ever captured on this camera, but it also became a powerful conversation starter with other people that I encountered throughout the event. Reactions ranged from “You’re shooting film out here?! You’re crazy!” to “That’s an incredible looking camera!” I found that since I was using film instead of a digital camera, individuals were more willing to engage with me and let me take their photos, as there is a strict consent policy for taking photos of participants at Burning Man. I even encountered another daring photographer with their Nikonos V at Burning Man as well. 

I found that I kept the camera mostly around f/8 to f/11 during the daylight in an effort to stay more present and focus less on manipulating the camera. As the sun went down though, I found I had to stop down much more, which required a stricter focus on settings and exposure due to the Nikonos’ unique scale-focusing system. Unfortunately, this meant I missed quite a few photos during the evening hours and those that I did capture were of questionable degrees of focus or exposure. In future events, I plan to invest in a simple laser rangefinder, or the new L.D. Meter from CHI, to more quickly approximate distance when stopping down these Ninkonos lenses.  

The Nikons V proved to be a pivotal tool to capture my first pilgrimage throughout the expanse of Burning Man’s Black Rock City and I have no doubts that it will survive countless more sojourns to Burning Man for years to come.

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