Need to learn more - have I come to the right place? ;-)

[2F/2F]

If you could only have one tip for someone that is about to make some serious mess with film, what would it be? ;-)

Nice to meet you all. Cheers.

Welcome. I think you have come to the right place.

The one tip I would have would be to not be afraid. Using film and using digital are remarkably similar in most of the ways that really count.

[eddie]

The K1000 was what my students used. Good choice...

[MattKing]

Welcome:

One tip?

"Pay close attention to the light!"

That isn't just for film though.

How about:

"Approach your photos carefully, and don't be hesitant to trust your instincts."

[Kevin Caulfield]

Ask for help, read what you can about the processes and be prepared to make some small mistakes. We have many people here who can help, and many of us are here in Australia. Oh, and welcome to our group.

[Jeff Kubach]

Hello and a warm welcome to APUG! Take your time, is there a library near you? If so check out some books. You might look up some community colleges.

Jeff

[Dan Daniel]

Tip? Along with all the others: one big difference between film and digital is the delay in getting feedback with film. Use this to your advantage. After firing the shutter, there is no LCD to look at. You are stuck with continuing to look at the scene, to prepare for the next shot, to make notes on what you just did... 'stuck' thinking about what you are doing rather than being immediately jerked into being a viewer. Enjoy this, relax into it, take the time to evaluate what you are doing, what you think you are doing. And then later that day or week, the film comes along, oftentimes with its own ideas of what was happening

[Diapositivo]

The single best thing you can do is study light metering. That is an area where analogue photography is quite different from digital.
Study (also here on APUG) the problems relating to how the reflective light meter responds to the reflectivity (darkness, lightness) of the subject.
I suggest you buy a second-hand hand-held incident light meter, learn how to use it (easy) and start using it.
If you want to use slides, then a hand-held spot (1°) reflected light meter can teach a lot on how to exploit best the dynamic range of slides.
An incident light meter correctly used will give you very good results in most situations with slides, only occasionally you might find you have some burned highlights.
Not being always possible to use an incident light meter learning exposure with a reflected light meter (hand-held or in-camera) is important.

In general, negatives are to be exposed following a different "logic" than slides. With slides it is imperative not to burn highlights. With negatives you are more concerned with not blocking shadows, and will have a lot of room for highlights.

Also in general negatives are very forgiving, so all the exposure theory is less important with negatives than with slides. If you don't want to deal with exposure problems as a first thing in your analogue journey, then I suggest you start with negative film.

Slides are similar to digital in the sense that in both cases you are especially wary about not burning highlights. With digital you do this, while shooting raw, using the histogram and applying the ETTR technique. With film you do this when the subject is contrasted and you risk burning highlights, ideally by using a spot lightmeter and by measuring the highest highlight that you want to salvage and "placing" it around 2.7 - 3 stops above middle grey.

If you learn proper exposure techniques you will find yourself bracketing only in tricky situations. Normal situations don't require bracketing but bracketing can be very good as a learning tool when using slides, bracketing at 1/3 EV will show you how the film behaviour changes by small exposure variations.

The second thing I advice to do is to learn developing. That will make analogue photography quite less expensive, and - depending on your shooting habit and upgrading frequency of gear - somehow even cheaper than digital.

[papagene]

Jenn - hello and welcome to APUG from western Massachusetts USA. My one tip... have fun!

[A Sabai]

Welcome to the forum. Enjoy your dive into film photography.

[keithwms]

If you could only have one tip for someone that is about to make some serious mess with film, what would it be? ;-)

(1) Try a bunch of different kinds of film cameras: the very best thing about film is that there are so many wonderfully different kinds of cameras to use. TLRs, press cameras, RFs, SLRs... paint can pinholes....

...and (2) buy film now! Lots!

(3) Gene is right, remember that it's meant to be fun! Enjoy yourself first, worry about the technicals later.

There you go, three tips, two unsolicited. Take your pick