No worries gillymor and I know threads here take their own directions. Anyway, I’ll reply with another of my rambles.

I’d have thought both film and digital are as easy or complicated as you want to make it? Most of the photos taken in my childhood were with a 1960s Kodak Brownie 44A which was a simple fixed focus point and shoot. I didn’t use a “proper” (I can’t think of a term…) camera until I was in my late 30s when I asked if I could try dad’s (bought second hand as a present for him but he never got to grips with it) Pentax ME Super. That brought manual focus and aperture priority to me. I took to that camera pretty quickly for what I wanted and had some nice results with it. It’s a shame the camera only had a short life with my ownership.

My replacement SLR, had autofocus and as well offering settings for certain scenes had one that was supposed to gage the type of picture you were taking and set things accordingly. I think that camera spent most of it’s time in that mode. although there can be the odd time I want to set the shutter of aperture, and I can find the HDR modes quite handy.

I suppose I’m in a similar state with my digital cameras, ie. they spend most of their life in some sort of “advanced point and shoot mode” although there can be the odd time I want to set the shutter of aperture, and I can find the HDR modes quite handy.


I have 3 digitals btw, probably all got within 12 months of each other around 6 or 7 years ago. Pentax DSLR. This was supposed to (and I think does) give me my best quality shots and be the one I’d learn more on if I ever got that far and stuck with it. Then, I thought I’d like to take some shots from greater distances but was never going to manage the cost or want to cope with the bulk of big 35mm lenses so I got a Fuji 50x superzoom bridge camera. This is nice and light but I decided I wanted something that would fit in my pocket so I got the Lumix compact.