Photographic industry

just get a cheap film SLR.

you can get a really really good one from next to nowt, while a digital equation would be quite expensive, and having learnt from using a film SLR, it´s a lots more useful to learn about photography than digital SLR (or any digital come to think about it)

Learn with film, then translate to digital (even thought you´ve taught yourself quite a handful).

Exactly what im doing atm. I'm using my dad's old Olympus OM10 and have a nice selection of top notch Zuiko lenses (recently won a mint 28mm on the bay for 17 quid :)). Also Ive gone right back to basics and am playing around with pinhole photography. I made a matchbox 35mm pinhole camera recently and have had good results from it.