Photography

there are loads of people into expired film photography also. I was thinking about trying it. You never know what kind of results you'll get!

I've never tried that, but sometimes the pictures one takes just as an experiment can be surprisingly effective. 

Here are two such examples, neither of which I really expected to emerge as anything other than unrecognizable blobs of light (these are scans of 35mm prints):

I really got into photography through a website called DP Challenge ( www.dpchallenge.com)  It is great for learning and for seeing what other amateurs out there are doing.  It is not the same as when I joined over 5 years ago but it's still great.  It's free, you don't have to pay to enter the open challenges (one a week), use the forums, etc.  You only pay if you want to enter the member challenges and put up a portfolio.  Check it out when you have some time.

June

I like a lot of the pictures people have posted so far!

I just saw this thread since I've been out of town, but I'm getting into photography right now too! I"m looking for a compact digital camera to keep in my pocketbook and want to save up for a dSLR. I'm glad you're looking to go digital. From everything I've been reading, and from playing around with cameras at stores, the dSLRs can do so much and they really have no/very little shutter delay. It felt almost like using a film camera again!

I didn't want to switch to digital either, simply because of the slow shutter speed and lag time between shots. I've bought a book called "Digital Photography for Dummies" and this is a book that has information about everything related to digital photography (it has 8 "books" definitely check it out if you haven't already). It's huge and has color photos.

I have a Sony Cybershot H-1 that I got last year and it was an older model then. It takes great shots and I think it's a good camera to learn on since it does more than a compact or point-and-shoot, but doesn't have all the features that a dSLR does. It's great for playing around for the reasons the others said as well. I'll update my photobucket soon and post some of my pictures from my vacation this past week.

I'd think about what you want from the camera and go from there. Everything I've read has highly recommended going with Canon or Nikon since they have been the "big dogs" of photography for so long and their lenses tend to be better. I also read that megapixels shouldn't be all that you go for, compare the quality of the pictures too. I'm having a problem that since I'm learning more I want my little compact that I get to have some great features!

The websites I've been looking at to help me choose cameras are:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/cameraList.php
http://www.popphoto.com/americanphoto/
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/reviews/

Good luck, it's so confusing when you're just trying to learn!

ETA: Here's a link to a few pictures I took on vacation. I think there's a link to show the Exif data for these shots as well, although I really just played with the scene modes for the action ones. I was surprised at how well they turned out, some of the waterskiing shots were taken into direct sunlight on an extremely sunny day, I didn't think they'd turn out at all and was pleasantly surprised!
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j109/chloe516/New%20Hampshire%202007/

I'm so excited! My good friend is about ready to pop at the end of next month. I asked her if I could do a little photoshoot with her newborn! I can't tell you how excited I am about it! I need to go buy props and stuff..

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!