Remember when I said I was in the market for a film slr? Well I still am, sort of. But the more and more and more I've been looking the more I'm leaning back towards fiercly wanting a digital slr. Since my class ended I've gone back to shooting with my A95 more than the Pentax slr I was using before. I'm frustrated by it's many limitations but I love not the instant feedback but the hour later feedback. Since the class I'm thinking much more about shots and composition so that's not so much my crutch anymore. But the combination of my point and shoot and the film slr are really slowing down the technical development I'd like to see.

Let me be clear, I can do the technical trial and error I'd like to do with my film slr but it would be a lot more work and time than I have to give right now. I can take my film slr out into the field this afternoon and take 36 pictures at varying apertures so I can experiment with depth of field. I can take detailed notes on what settings I'm shooting at so I can match it up exactly with the negatives and prints. Then I can drive 30 minutes to the film developing place I trust and drop the film off. I can pick the film up tomorrow and drop $10.70 for the roll. Then I bring the prints home, match them up to the settings with my detailed notes and look at them and see what I can learn. This is of course after I've paid another $7 for new a roll of C-41 black and white film. So at this point I'm at nearly $18 for an afternoon of shooting.

Now let's pretend I've got a digital slr. I take it out and shoot this afternoon. With a 1GB card I've got basically unlimited shooting capacity. Not only that, I can look at a shot's depth of field (I'm obsessed with depth of field right now, can you tell?) immediately after I take a shot. I can figure out what I want in the shot, set the camera to achieve and then see if the image in my head matches what the camera does. If not I can make adjustments and get what I want. It's through that trial and error that I learn best.

Currently I find myself not shooting as much as I would like with the film slr because to shoot as much as I want I'd be spending upwards of $60 a week on film and processing. With that math the cost of a digital slr isn't really that unreasonble. Especially with the new Nikon D50 being really damn reasonable.

So now, the new, new plan is that I really, really, really want a digital slr. Really. Eventually my ideal setup would be to have a digital slr and a film slr to shoot black and white portraits with. The texture and tone of black and white prints are just more pleasing to me than their digital counterparts.

So there. I've confessed my wishy-washness. For the time being I'm saving up for a digital slr. I'm holding on to my borrowed film gear and I'm planning to take a darkroom class in the spring because I'm still so interested in learning about every aspect of photography that I can.