Try buying an old Nikon F5 at one of your local photography dealers rather than from ebay or other online merchants. Just in case if the camera doesn't work or have some fault you can return it with ease without any postage and handling costs.

If you want a 35mm film camera and you want Nikon then it has to be the FM3a hands down. It is now a bargain (for obvious reasons). Built like a tank and fully manual. The only way to learn.

The last roll of Kodachrome was recently developed and it made the news. If you plan on going to a career in photo conservation the time spend shooting film and developing it and making prints is a worthwhile activity. If you are not making such plans the class makes as much sense as a computer class where they use punch cards and teach you to program in Cobal.

Hard to believe that there are so many Luddites in the teaching ranks. Digital photography is the best thing that every happened for teachers and students alike. In particular having the EXIF data for every shot to know exactly what setting were used, the point of focus, and color temp are invaluable. When I started out as a student I was using 4x5 sheet film and having to take notes on every picture taken which was a whole lot less. Fewer shots means fewer opportunities to experiment and fewer opportunities to learn.

I do underwater photography and whereas with film it might take several years to become a competent photographer, today with digital it can be accomplished in days. Some of what you learn will be useful in general but a lot of time will be wasted and opportunities to learn delayed by learning from a teacher still stuck on film.

Unfortunately photography is considered a soft A-Level nowadays which is why so many colleges in England have dropped it. Out of all the colleges in South Yorkshire only Sheffield offer it and the uptake isn't great so its impossible for the head of department to justify to the principal the need for £40k to spend on a room full of iMacs loaded with CS5. Its certainly not the tutor calling the shots.

There are those colleges that offer evening courses and these are always expensive with NO concessions. If this is the case and they are teaching people a redundant skill set such as those based on film photography, well I would be contacting trading standards!