I was that geek who was in orchestra, choir, marching band, and took AP Music Theory.

I don't feel like I'm artistic at all, but I like to doodle and I love a good photograph. So... film or digital? Where to start? I love film for the same reasons we love vinyl.

How much space do you need to develop your own stuff at home and what all does it entail? Or is this why you get a 401 k, so you can afford a hobby when you're all retired?

Photography is a GREAT hobby! Understand, though, it's also an expensive one. Digital is fine, but photography at its truest form is in film.

Digital would probably be cheaper in that you can buy software to manipulate your photos on a computer. However, you can buy some really cool (and $$$) cameras that allow for different lenses (also $$$). You could probably find used SLR and medium format cameras much cheaper, buy the assorted lenses and filters for it.

If you plan on developing at home -- I'd recommend only b&w developing, colour is REALLY tricky and best left to machines that can be manipulated for colour saturation. Though, if you shoot colour slide film, it's a neat process...just complicated.

Once you get the bug, you'll want more and more. After taking photography courses (I'm only a couple of classes shy of being a "certified photographer"), I realized that the cost was getting way too expensive and time consuming. But, I love it and hope to return to it in the future.

Good luck!

Dig it, thanks for the advice. Where did you take classes?

I took classes at a local adult ed school, Tri-Community, located in Covina, California. One of the best in So Cal from what I'm told -- people would travel far just to attend. Tution is MEGA cheap (about $65 / semester, though they may have recently increased it). The best part? You had full utilization of their colour and B&W labs and studios at no additional cost. The only thing you had to pay to use the labs was the cost of the developing paper. Dude, you can't beat that!

Damn, I'm starting to get the bug again...hmmm.

by the way, in addition to tricky, color processing is highly toxic. i am a professional photographer and i won't go near a home color lab.

and i say shoot film. and a class is a great idea. self-assignments are a lot harder to complete., especially in the beginning.

Shit, i didn't know that. Thanks.

So, Phil? Whatcha thinkin' of doing?

looking at both film and digital slr's on ebay and craigs list. Looking for deena too, she was an art student for a bit, and almost all the artwork hanging in our place is hers, or her photography.

So shhh....

Wish I'd made the time in high school to do it, but those pesky academic requirements got in the way.

i would so go digital. its going to be a lot less expensive and you will learn a lot faster. i say this because you can constantly adjust shutter, aperture, iso and not worry about wasting film. i've read about many camera companies discontinuing the film side of their business too. if you can, get a DSLR, canon and nikon have great ones for under a grand. and theres my two cents.

Any model recommendations? Features that you gotta have, or features that are nice but unnecessary?

I also vote digital, because you can monitor inputs/outputs much quicker, plus you don't need film to fiddle with composition.

film is far more rewarding, but digital is the way to to just have some fun.

but i recomend taking a class with film. Even if you switch to digital after. It's really fun to make prints from film and there is something about making prints that a digital will never touch.

but if you dont have a class, go digital.

Also, I'm a little on the OCD side, I like digging in and finding out what works, why it works, I tend to pick alot of brains...

so here's a question. When you're working in film, the development process can drastically affect the final product right?

Cause if that's true, then I'd want to dig into that.

You're talking to the fucking idiot who did 1.5 years of an unpaid internship at a recording studio at about 30 hours a week just because I got sick of the way other people recorded my music and i just HAD to learn as much as I could. Not even that I do it better than them, that's not always true, but if it's gonna get fucked up (in a bad way) i want to be the one to blame. Cause if I pay someone and they fuck it up, I will flip out like Bjork and beat someone's ass.

Although if the answer is yes, that's probably a good reason to go digital, no? My dad's got an old film SLR with some lenses at home that no one is using...

yes.
you can print the same photo a million different ways. but you can also mess with digial images in photoshop in a million different way. The differance is that film is hands on with stinky chemicals in a dark room.

i only did film for a short amount of time in a month long course, but i had a great time.

with digital you can take a million pictures and that is fun. But with film you have to stop and think about what you are shooting and printing because it takes money/time/resources.

If i can nab my dad's, i think i'm gonna dig into both film and digital.

I know, i know, i can't fucking chill out about anything that I'm on.

bets of both worlds.

I have a Pentax digital SLR, and love it. If you decide to go the digital route, check those old lenses - my camera can use just about all the old pentax k-mount lenses I had lying around, and possibly other mounts with the correct adapter.

Getting a nice collection of lenses is more expensive than the camera body, so if you have some already you're ahead of the game.

I'm partial to the Canon digital rebel. I have the 300D which is the slightly older 6megapixel one, the new on is 8MP and is called the 350D or rebel xt. A good resource for looking up camera reviews is http://www.dpreview.com/

I've also heard the Nikon D50 a nd D70 are really good.

As far as features, one I wish I had would be fast start up. The 300D takes a few seconds from when you turn it until its ready, the 350D is instant on. Doesn't sound like much, but when it makes you miss a shot its frustrating. Some other things would be to make sure it has low noise at high ISO, a good size lcd monitor, good buffer size so if you shoot fast, you dont have to wait for the cam to catch up.

If you do get into this, you will most likely acquire a lens addiction. Most kit lenses are pretty basic, then you start thinking, maybe i want a super wide angle, or a fast prime, or a long zoom, and the costs start piling up. its fun though.

oh, and one more thing, definitely handle the cam before you buy it. for all the great features the 350D has, i still like the way the 300D fits in my hands a lot better.

curious about what you mean by the composition part? because you can crop and re-frame in photoshop easily?

Im not a reactionary purist by any stretch.. but I say dont disregard analog out of the box. Easy answer- if you are doing B&W there is no digital substitute.. period. For color, the flexbility an old camera will offer you in price and making you UNDERSTAND what you are doing, are very instructive.

If you are doing color- digital offers a great learning tool in that you have instantaneous access to the outcome- so you can take 10 shots each varying in f-stop (aperature) vs shutter speed and see how it affects composition (Depth of Field, for instance). On the other hand, if you are blowing up from a digital image, you are going to see the limits of your camera sooner (i.e lense, pixel quality etc). Also since you can take 100 photos without spending any money, there might be the possiblity that you arent paying attention to composition the way you should be (compared to shooting with a 4x6 camera where you *feel* the $$ of every shot you make).

But to me, the benefits of digital only become a non-handicap on learning if you have a SLR..

Personally, I would also get a film SLR, you can pick them up on the cheap
Bhphotovideo.com is a highly recommended place.

The benefit is, you can pick up a 'cheap' body, and supplement it with older manual lenses (so they are cheap). Additional lenses for digital cameras are far from cheap and so one tends to get a mediocre zoom lense.

Oh and I say just get a 50mm lense to start.. work with that .. and then when you can articulate why you need a 28mm or a 105/135mm lens, then look into buying one.

Finally, if you are interested, Id see if your library has Ansel Adam's 3 book set, The Camera, The Negative, The Print especially if you are interested in B&W

Oh and you asked about Darkrooms.. they can be cheap if you dont care that you take the guerilla method to the bathroom darkroom (http://www.dantestella.com/technical/guerilla.html has a nice intro to what it takes)

I can prattle on but ask if you have questions

if you do decide to dabble with film, you should be able to find a cheap adult ed course which would provide a dark room.

I'm poking around on ebay. Read some good things about the Pentax *ist DL SLR which is in general going for $550-750, although I found this one with a buy it now of $250, which would normally make me wary but it's from one of those ebay powerseller stores which has the similar makes like the Nikon D50, D70, and Canon Rebel XT listed in normal price ranges.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3AVRI&rd=1

Anyhow, still poking around. Any opinion on the Pentax?

huh.