That custom guitar is an abomination, and that other guy from Brazil or whatever building his own was fucking cool. Makes me want to do the same thing, but I have no money for materials, and no tools :/
pm me your address and i'll send you that lens in a few days.
like 95% of cameras use the same size (1/4'') threaded socket for a tripod.. as long as the tripod has a 1/4'' screw on the head, you can use it with your new cam.
like i was saying, the drug store black n white can be processed and thrown on a cd for less than $5 a roll by the same place you bought it from. do that until you're comfortable with the basics.
buyitnow prices are usually jewed up because they're... well buyitnow.
don't get discouraged if you don't find a cheap one right away.. there are literally a fuck ton of 35mm bodies floating around on craigslist/ebay/whatever. the things were crazy mass produced and nobody uses them anymore.
developing at home is fun as fuck and really easy.. you just need a dark area (a bathroom or even a dark bag) where you transfer the film from the camera to the dev tank. from there, you can just go to a sink or whatever and dump chems into the tank in a certain order for a certain amount of time depending on the film and what speed you shot it at.
you *could* get a digital body for ~300 no problem.. the problem is affording a lens that will be wide enough to do what you want (landscapes and architecture). with an OM body, you can come up on dirt cheap zuiko lenses on ebay all day.
and i made the cost thing out to sound worse than it actually is.. especially when you're just starting out.
you can get b&w film at the drug store and have it processed there for seriously cheap (the drug store color stuff is never that exciting).. you can do that until you feel comfortable going out and buying more expensive films that require a dedicated photo lab or processing it yourself.
all 35mm bodies are basically the same.. it's what film you put in them that makes the pictures. a lot of people will argue that you'll learn more about photography if you start in film.
i have that exact olympus.. if you can find just an olympus body (anything in the OM line), i'll send you that exact same 50/1.8 lens for free. get an OM-1 if you can.. they're built like tanks.
another boss thing about olympus is the optics.. zuiko lenses are fucking bad ass and they literally have a cult following of people that compare them to precision german shit that costs 4x as much. their design allows them to be small, solid, and mountable on pretty much anything. a cheap metal ring from ebay allows me to mount any of my zuiko lenses on my digital.
here's the part where shitsux: film is fucking expensive over time. especially if you shoot a lot of color film.. you can buy enough chemicals and a developing tank to do a ton of rolls of black & white yourself for under $50, but then you need to get a scanner if you want to bring your shit onto the computer.. or you need access to a darkroom or a local lab if you want to make prints from your negatives. not to mention you still have to buy film.
it's an expensive hobby... but there's always shortcuts. you can usually snatch up a bunch of expired film for cheap and have it processed and thrown on a CD by your local drug store for less than $5. you just have to be flexible with what you're expecting.. but for learning the basics about the relationship between exposure, shutter speed and aperture, it doesn't matter if you start on film or digital.
and in terms of price, you can get setup with a used system for less than $400.. and less than $600 if you go new. but that's not written in stone or anything.
at this point, you should go to a best buy or wherever and mess around with some of the cameras there. see which ones feel more comfortable in your hand and which menu makes sense, etc.. that will at least point you in the direction of which brand to go with.
if you can't do that, don't sweat it.. the pictures from entry level dslrs (and all digital cameras for the most part) look exactly the same. you'll just have to choose a brand and roll with it. for intro stuff, canon and nikon have the market on lock.. you can get other cameras, but most just go with either of those two for whatever reason. like i said, it doesn't really matter.
i know canons, bread knows nikons, so if you can't figure shit out with it you're covered.
