Zoom is important to me, as I do quite a bit of landscapes. I'll take your suggestions into consideration. Thanks guys.
On the contrary, I think someone with experience would still think before he or she took the shot. I think digital would be great to learn from because it's cheap compared to film. Although, there is potential that the person will just be lazy and not think before they shoot.
The appeal of film is that it's unpredictable. You know exactly what you're going to get with a digital and when editing in an image program, but film is a *****. If you developed your own film here, you'd have to have tight control on the chemicals and dispose of them properly. It varies from state to state, but If you do something wrong, you could be arrested. I don't know how the laws are in England, but they are probably similar.
I worked in a photo lab once, and those chemicals are dangerous in even a diluted state. Some of them have warnings like, "may cause thyroid problems." I got a chemical burn once, but that's because I didn't wear chemical gloves. I learned my lesson after that. I used to be made fun of by the cashiers because I actually wore the stuff, even my manager didn't wear the gear. He even told me I didn't have to during training. Wearing it made the process much slower when refilling chemicals. I even took flak from a lot of cutomers, but I felt much safer, screw them.
Film is very dangerous. People should learn from an expert if they want to develop their own pictures, because you're working with harzardous chemicals.
