New To Photography

[abickham11]

My husband and I are becoming more interested in photography. We have been told that we take some great pictures, and now we are starting to think that we should invest in learning more about it. We are planning on taking a photography class this Fall- they require a 35mm camera. Any suggestions on what kind of camera we should look at getting? I have heard the Nikon series are great cameras and that their lenses are interchangable with the digital versions. Eventually we would like to get into wedding photography. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!

[another view]

Welcome to the site. I'm sorry I missed this thread earlier and that you haven't had any replies.

Usually classes will want a camera that can be used fully manually. Usually there isn't a problem with a camera that will also work automatically, they just want you to have the tools you need to experiment with. Personally, I shoot manually often enough but some automatic functions are really nice to have in other situations. I'm familiar with Nikon so I can give you some recommendations, but do you have a budget in mind? Prefer new or used? There are some great bargains out there with used film cameras these days.

The F100 is pretty much all the camera that 99% of the world will ever need. I had one and loved it. It was expensive when I bought it new, but used ones in good shape are very reasonable. As for lenses, a Nikon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 and a 50mm f1.8 are a good pair for starters. Used, those three things would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6-700 I'd guess.