Hey everyone - I just wanted to say hello because this forum looks really active and welcoming, which is rare online these days where everything feels like a performance or an argument waiting to happen instead of just actual community building, but

Opening thread commentary.

Welcome Alex — your darkroom story made me laugh out loud. The friction fire one is pure

Welcome Alex! Your intro is hilarious — my uncle had a similar moment with a charcoal grill and it basically became his personality for two years, everyone at Christmas would bring up the "grill incident" as if it were an award ceremony.

For film photography, I'd start with something like a Canon AE-1 or Pentax K1000 — they have manual controls which

Hey Alex, welcome to the sub — glad you found us through your photo research! Analog is a great rabbit hole and it's definitely worth getting into properly even though there's always that initial steep learning curve with darkroom work (I burned my first three rolls trying to get developer timings right). Your uncle story cracked me up, my dad once tried a "backyard forge" project where he ended up melting his lawn chair. As for film photography recommendations — if you haven't already looked at the Pentax K10D or maybe an old Nikon F3 body, those are great entry points because they have extensive manual controls without being overwhelming. Kodak Tri-X 400 is a workhorse black and white stock that develops reasonably quickly compared to some others which helps with the learning process. Welcome again and feel free to ask anything — we're all pretty chill here!