The Black Room - General Discussion [I]

digital or film? you can find a Canon Digital Rebel XT for that price range, with the standard lens. You'd want nicer lenses after that but it's a start

I use an Olympus OMG, my mom uses an Olympus OMPC. They're both very similar camera, and nice, but you don't even need anything that complex. Basically, they want you to have the most manual camera, to learn the basics.

the light meter comes in 3 flavors that I've seen. when you look inside the view finder with the camera on, you'll either see a needle that may point to a + or a -, 3 dots, vertically, or, like my olympus, a whole lot of numbers going up the side.

you want a camera which you can set the shutter speed, aperture, exposure, and ASA(film speed). Cameras that do some of this for you take away from learning what they do and how you can change the picture by adjusting them.