good, cheap, 2nd hand film SLR for n00b?

any ideas? obvs there's loads on ebay... but i have no idea what's good or not in terms of lenses or the camera itself. used my dad's as a kid, and i'd love to get started again. i'm thinking maybe less than £60?

all of them... any of the MMM (metal, mechanical, manual) ones from the 70s paired with a 50mm will do ya fine

don't buy one of the plastic ones from the 80s/90s

Depends how n00b, maybe? I'd much rather have learned on something like an EOS 5/1 with autofocus and program mode rather than doing everything by hand like I did.

hmm, for learning, digital is better imo, since you get instant feedback

Nikon N90 (or I think F90 in Europe?) - prior to the F100 it was Nikon's second-best autofocus film SLR. Routinely sell for under a hundred in the US. Pair it with a $60 used 50mm f/1.8 and you'll have a great learner's combo.

I bought an F100 for $200 a few weeks ago. I weighed getting a mechanical Nikon body instead, but they actually cost more.

I'll be the guy to throw his vote behind an older SLR + 50mm lens combo. The manual focus isn't really any kind of impediment at all, and a match-needle metering system is relatively simple, and once you learn it, then you learn very well just how to affect the exposure and depth of field on your pictures.
These older SLRs (your basic Pentax K-mounts, Olympus OMs, Canon AEs etc.) are all pretty affordable (often a camera + lens will set you back only $50-75 total on craigslist or in thrift stores [just be sure to test the shutter and make sure everything is working]) and anyway, they were many n00bs' first cameras for many years! (Including me of course, using my mom's old Pentax Superprogram in high school, which brings up point 2 or 3: many of these manufacturers came out with program- and auto-mode SLRs (still manual focus) in the early 80s that still had the rigid construction of their earlier cameras. I think it was probably 83-85 or so when everything really turned plastic.)

Oh for crying out loud I guess this is a different login than my normal one. Thought I could remember my info at work.

The manual focus isn't really any kind of impediment at all
Packs of blurry-ass sports shots from my young buck days disagree.

OK maybe not for sports then. But hanging around, taking pictures of friends or taking a leisurely stroll? Manual focus is fun! Plus it's probably what aforementioned dad's camera would have been anyway.

i bought my camera for a tenner, the praktica ltl-3

Depends how n00b, maybe? I'd much rather have learned on something like an EOS 5/1 with autofocus and program mode rather than doing everything by hand like I did.

― stet, Wednesday, February 9, 2011 12:44 AM (2 days ago)

lol i feel the exact opposite way as a noob who would prolly have already gotten bored w. the whole thing if i didnt have to figure out all the shutter speed stuff