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In a recent discussion on the digital forum I suggested that it was better for a person to BEGIN photography by using a simple camera, a camera without all the 'bells and whistles'.
It is my opinion that a good photograph depends more on the photographers imagination and eye than on the gadgets his camera has. You can take a great picture with a simple camera but a bad photographer will still take booring bad photos with an expensive camera, etc..
The advice that kept comming in was in the direction of spending a little more and getting such and such digital camera with an extra few features.
I have just read the following in a book of photographs of Victorian Birmingham:
"Victorian Photography at its best has to be experienced to be believed: Fox Talbot's precise records; the deep mysterious portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron; and the history of the times captured by Hill and Adamson, Frank Sutcliffe and Roger Fenton - all are outstanding. Every square inch of a good photograph is relevant...Because cameras were cumbersome and glass plates heavy and expensive, photographers thought before each exposure. There was time to love photography...It is a debatable point that there were a handful of great photographers in Victorian times and there are still only a handful today."
Anyway, I thought that you all might be interested in the quote.
Keith Hart
Agree a lot. There are frequent threads on the lines of, "I am a complete beginner so should I go for a top-end prosumer or a DSLR?".
A simple compact (film or digital) - maybe with a zoom but not necessarily would be a much better starting point. I started my photographic life as a young kid with an inherited one of these
Seabloke,
I'm not sure if your posting is a gentle joke...
Don't get a compact, you'll learn a lot more with a basic manual SLR and a couple of lenses.
You will learn more about taking a good PHOTOGRAPH with a compact, because, like the Victorians you will have to take TIME to think before you take the photograph. It is this thinking time - subject, composition, light - that makes a good photograph.
Well, if it was a joke, it's now on me 
Carabosse,
The Kodak Brownie 127. Ah! My first camera, my parents purchased it for me 41 years ago when I was a lad. I've still got it, along with my mother's 6-20 Brownie Junior, but nowadays they are in a glass display case. Perhaps I should get them out again.
Keith Hart
I totally disagree, Seabloke - sorry. An SLR of whatever sort is running before walking.
You need to develop your eye for photography. Fiddling around with lenses and the mechanics of manual cameras is just a distraction for a beginner. Even a prosumer would be OTT.
The camera should be an almost invisible tool - like using a pen for writing. The more a beginner has to worry about the mechanics of photography the less he/she will develop his/her eye for it in the early stages.
Once they have got the feel for photography then by all means experiment with more complex cameras.
I'm on the fence with this one.
There are, to my mind, two types of people who take photographs. Those that just want to do simply that - take photographs. The mechanics, physics, chemistry, technicalities of the business are of no interest and so for them a manual camera of whatever type may not be what they are best suited to.
On the other hand, there are those who like to understand more about the technical process involved in taking a photograph. Perhaps they want to understand more about Depth of Field, Differential Focussing etc etc in which case, a manual camera (rangefinder, slr or whatever) will be invaluable.
I am not sure that a carte blanc statement that all photographers should start with a manual camera is appropriate these days. I didn't learn to drive on a Model T so why should a photographer be expected to learn on the photographic equivalent.
As I say, it depends on what the photographer is looking to achieve from their interest.
Barrie
I agree with not starting with too complex a camera, but the problem of starting with too basic a model is that you are likely to be disappointed with the results.
You don't need to understand too much about photography to need some sort of zoom, or a little control over the exposure or flash.
One of the good things about digital is that all but the most basic cameras give you these things, which film compacts seem to lack (apart from the zoom).
Ian
Chaps
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against 'whistles and bells' on a camera. I just think that the MOST important thing is the THOUGHT that goes into taking the photograph. Having learned that, you can then utilise the gadgets to better effect. It is not the gadgets that make the photo. It is the thought.
Barrie, let me take your analogy of the Model T Ford. No, of course you shouldn't learn to drive in one. But you should learn to drive (and probably did) in something like a Nissan Micra before going off in a 3.5 ltr v12 Jaguar.
The problem (perhaps not quite the correct word) is that photography as a hobby offers the participant sooooo many goodies to spend their money on that sometimes the goodies can become more important than the end product, the photograph.
Keith Hart
The first camera I owned was a Kodak instamatic. It was several years later that I purchased a Zenith E. It was some time later that I understood the combination of F stops and shutter speeds. It got to the stage that I could estimate what to combination of fstop & shutter speed to use without using the cumbersom uncoupled meter of the Zenith. I took what I consider to have been some very good photographs at that time and ended up doing a bit of freelance in the 70's. I did quite a lot of weddings on recommendations from satisfied customers. The confidence I gained by knowing my camera inside out was vast. I own a film slr with several lenses and a digital camera. I fully understand what shtter priority,aperture priority , manual, depth of field etc does because nothing has changed (other than being a lot easier) than what I learned from manual cameras over 40 years ago. You learn from understanding your camera and what it does and also from having an eye for a picture. It's a sad fact the some people(I know of several)Buy very expensive cameras, swith them to program and rarely anything else. I hear comments of "why is the action shot blurred? Why is this picture so dark/light etc, surely a camera of this quality should do better than this?" And when they manage to get the exposure etc correct you get pictures of trees growing out of the top of heads! The composure of some shots are terrible! Theyblame it on their expensive cameras! I gave up trying to explain that the eye is subjective, it sees somebody or thing in the viewfinder and unless you learn otherwise it ignores the distractions. The camera will pick up the distractions.
Ken
Ken
I don't think there is a simple answer to this topic. I took up 'serious' photography in the early 70's with a cheap Russian SLR. I loved it and I thought I took great photos. I think I learned something then, mostly that after a couple of rolls of film cheap and under spec'd cameras are frustrating to use.
When I was 'educated' in photography for a specific job I was given a 5x4 plate camera, two sheets of film, a subject to shooot and 3 sheets of paper to produce a print. All I learned was how to be economical in producing a good quality technical print. Moving up to an RB6x7 for my work was great and the quality of the negatives produced outstanding. Content was another matter.
I have been able to use 5x4 plate cameras, 6x7s, 6x6,quality 35m, had access to Devere 5x4 enlargers in proffesional darkrooms stocked with an almost unlimited supply of materials. I now use a digital SLR, shoot hundreds of frames and am I better a photographer for it. I don't think so.
I believe photography is all about seeing the image, a quality you either have or don't have. If you have it, no matter the equipment, photography is simple. If you don't have it, no matter the equipment, gettting good photos is hard work, .
For me it is still hard work but very enjoyable.
There are so may aspects, I think that different people will respond in different ways. Some technical minded people will thrill at the aspects of getting into shutter speeds, depth of field etc. And then once they have mastered it they will move on into composition. So give them a compact and it may not excite them.
For other people, there will be an image in their mind, and bothering them with shutter speeds etc will drive them nuts and distract them from working on the image at an early stage.
On the other hand having to work around a limitation may make people develop a certain aspect of their skills.
The limitations of early photography did make people think hard about each photo, but it was a hobby for the well off only.
If you tell people they have only one shot the impact varies, you can have paralysis by analysis, panic or great thought and a work of art. Alternatively if you give some people plenty of shots at something some will blast away and take lots of images, bad or good by luck, some will give up in disgust and others will take the chance to experiment and produce a good result.
So I think you need to work out your personality, and pick a path that suits you.
i took my first photos using my father's pentacon. little camera without any light metering and with tiny rangefinder. i had too use little pocket size table - kinda rotating board with symbols of cloud, sun, half-sun and in a little window i could see appropiate aperture. and thanks for that!
I have vague memories of Brownies and Kodak Instamatic "family" cameras until my Mum progressed to a Zenit E, and because I was too little to lift the brute, but had heard about this wonderful 35mm lark I blew about a years worth of pocket money on a Cosmic Symbol. Turned out to be a cracking little camera and was great for landscapes.
Progressed to a cheap cosina slr, and some even cheaper lenses.
The good (or bad, depends how you look at it) thing with digital is that there are no processing costs, which tends to mean that you can blaze away regardless until the memory card is full, but I still tend to take a while to try and get the shot right - I guess that is the effect of using film cameras and handing over a good percent of my ill-gotten to the processing lab...
I think Keith is right, there is a lot more to taking a good photo than a good camera, but it really depends how hard you are prepared to work at it. At the moment I am deleting about 90% of my shots, so I still have a bit of work to do there, and should maybe get the old cosmic symbol out again!
Advice to start with a manual SLR is no joke.
Its a frequently recommended and very sensible approach. However I do tend to assume that everyone already has a basic camera of some kind. If someone hasn't anything at all, and can't afford digital, then a compact is sensible. It doesn't make you think though, its designed so you just point, and shoot. Its when you have to set up your manual camera yourself that you stop and think about what you are doing.
Nowadays I'd think ideally one would have a modest digital and computer setup for playing with ideas and composition, and the manual SLR for learning how cameras really work.
My first camera was a vest pocket Kodak. I understood nothing of what my father taught me about f-stops and stuff, and the technicalities were very offputting. The basic idea that you can make photographs with very simple kit stuck in my mind though. (Dad didn't use tables, he just had the sunny 16 rule in his head).
30 years later I got a manual SLR. The early lessons came back, it was not difficult to learn to use it, and the quality of photo it could produced, compared to the cheaper compacts, was an eyeopener.
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