Religious wars in photography (Score 1)

Wow, what a lot of photographic religious wars seem to be hidden away in this question. Lets list a few:

• Film vs Digital
• Canon vs Nikon (vs Pentax)
• Auto vs Manual
• Negative film vs Slide film

Now I think of it, I might even have actually spotted:

• 35mm vs Medium Format

You can find all these wars being fought anywhere that photography is discussed, especially the first one. I'm so sick of reading about film vs digital that I could puke.

Fortunately, it mostly doesn't matter. If you have a beginning interest in photography then I think the most important thing is that you get something you can use immediately which can give you decent results. Whatever that is should also allow you room to grow as you become more knowledgable and experienced.

There's much more to correctly exposing a picture than modern cameras would lead you to believe (well, that was my experience anyway). There's a huge amount of reading to be done on the subject. Zone systems and f/stops and grey cards abound - it's a topic to be approached gradually.

The person who suggested that you get a completely manual camera and use it to take pictures on slide film was bonkers, I think. Slide film is very exposure intolerant, so you would need to get the exposure exactly right most of the time. This approach would punish you for every mistake by delivering a picture which didn't come out. That way lies a very unrewarding feeling of expensive frustration.

In my opinion, the most important thing is that you get something which enables you to take pictures which mostly come out. Then, by reading up and tuning your approach, you can adjust your technique and start to understand what's going on with the science of it all. To that end I would recommend something with autofocus and autoexposure, and I'd recommend 35mm negative film. If you look on eBay you should be able to find something appropriate.

Personally I use and understand Canon kit, so I'm thinking of something like an Elan II (EOS 50 in non-USA speak). Getting a 50mm prime lens (Canon's f/1.8 is about $100 brand new) instead of a zoom would help teach you composition (and only punish you by making you move around a bit), and the wide aperture lets you take pictures in far less light and helps to reduce camera shake. Oh, and prime lenses (non zoom lenses) are always much sharper than zooms, especially lower end consumer zooms.

Finally, remember that the end product is the picture. Photography is an art form which happens to have a very great deal of science in it. The right camera will help you with the science, but ultimately it's the art which will motivate you and give you and other people pleasure. Nobody is going to reject a beautiful photograph because you used auto exposure or autofocus!