To the original poster: The old SLRs are pretty easy to use, once you know what the aperture and shutter speed controls are. You will also know how to use the camera's built in light meter too... to know if your settings are set for optimal exposure.
I personally would recommend this camera, for its small size and weight and its incredible metering system in automatic mode (when you want to be lazy) and its simple and ergonomic design (making a shutter speed ring at the base of the lens mount so focus, aperture and shutter speed can be adjusted by one hand quickly).
The Olympus OM-2
This is how I like to think of films:
Film is an art of non-linearity whereas digita is a art of linearity.
Film is often choosen based on their speeds (which controls the grain size on the film), contrast (subfactor: latitude), and color saturation (for color film). Film is often choosen this way because unlike digital capture, the film in non linear. Each film has strengths and weaknesses when compared to other films. For instance, for outdoor festival events I would choose Kodak Ultra Color series film (such as Kodak UC400), because it has rich color saturation and very good contrast. Now if I was shooting outdoor portraits for like wedding shoot , I would use Fujifilm NPH series, because of its lower color saturation and softer contrast (low contrast).
In a digital world, the image is captured via a CCD sensor, and is thus stored for post processing. A CCD sensor captures the image in a linear way, unlike film where we have to pick it based on its characteristics. A CCD doesn't come preset with its own color saturation, contrast, or speed, although you can adjust the camera to modify the capture, it generally captures all the images in the same fashion, with the same color saturation, contrast and speed, etc. (if you look at it in a basic way). To achieve certain effects on the image it is done post processing (Photoshop).
Although film is fading away in this digital world, it does have some applications where digital isn't the norm (or not yet).
-Astronomy photography or just plain taking pictures of the starry sky. Digital cameras can only hold a shutter open as long as the battery lasts... which will be drained as the camera's CPU is running awol trying to figure out when to stop the exposure. Old film SLRs when used in a manual mode can be locked (using a release cable) to do hours if needed of keeping that shutter open to capture that night sky.
-Criminal Justice, film is generally still the norm, it is incredibly hard to fake or 'photoshop' a image to falsify evidence or data. Although Canon does offer some hardware inconjunction with their DSLRs to put proper locks and signatures on images to prevent modification.
-Disposable cameras. Well there are disposable digital cameras, but they don't yet match up to the image quality of a film disposable camera. Nor does the price tag of a film disposable camera. As long as there are disposable digital cameras people will find ways to hack and reuse them as regular cameras, which makes it a loss of profit to the manufacturer and thus increasing the price of the camera.
-Teaching Basic Photography. Film is still the best way to teach basic photography skills and light capture theory. Make sure you know film before you go to digital. I personally learned by using a older film SLR how to select aperture and shutter speed (which is sometimes called a technique), based on the shooting enviroment's light level, WITHOUT using a light meter and getting (about 90% of the time on 400 speed film) a proper or near optimal exposure. I'm a human light meter
. I learned these techniques and what to use in varying lighting situations, due to repetition and looking and remembering the aperture and shutter speed used. Its a useful skill to at least get you into a ballpark 'technique' for proper exposure... like when your light meter fails. Also with film is that you waste film if you don't get the shot right the first time... which also taught me to frame quickly, focus quickly and quickly anticipate the shot to get it right the first time around. No i'm not perfect but at least i minimize my repeats...
I currently do own a digital camera (not quite a SLR, but more of a prosumer camera) and a several film SLRs. I don't use my film SLRs as much but I do prefer to use it in certain situations and when I want to use it for nostalgic reasons.
! that is a pretty fly camera
