Photography - Best Camera

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Originally Posted by Catwoman

...Yes, I refuse to get digital. Want to stick to tradition. And would love to become proficient with b&w, it is classy, distinctive and can create just the right tone... except b&w film is very expensive...

Cat, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss digital if I were you. I swore by my Cannon AT-1 SLR that I've used exclusively for 24 plus years, and it still takes very impressive pictures, but a few years ago I experimented with a cheap digital because of the ease and compatibility with computers. I have since moved up to a higher end Olympus C-8080, probably a little out of your price range, and it takes wonderful pictures! Learning on a traditional film camera is good for gaining knowledge of photography in general but if you consider the cost of film and processing, not only B&W but color too, digital is far cheaper in the long run. Like Glatt said, you can shoot thousands of digital pictures for practically nothing. Compare that to if you had to buy all that film, especially when maybe only 10% of the pictures will be 'keepers'.
Now that I'm more experienced with the digital I find I can be more creative with it as far as tweaking the pictures myself as opposed to relying on the photo processing lab to do the job. And it is possible to change color pictures to B&W in a good photo program like Photoshop, something you can't do readily with film.