Get the steadiest tripod and best head you can for your money. If it's heavier then others, spend $20-$25 on a decent shoulder strap to carry it. It REALLY DOES make a huge difference and you won't even notice carrying a couple/few extra pounds.

Trust me on this, you want multi focus readers. Foster Grant makes such reading glasses that retail at about $35 but you can sometimes find them under $20. Walgreens occasionally has a 2 for 1 sale. There designed for reading AND viewing a computer screen or across your desk. They work just as well, if not better, then my $300 "no-line" prescription. Try them once and you'll never go back. Oh yeah, the frames on these glasses are decent quality too.

Good for You! Back in the '80's I did a number of Weddings for people who couldn't afford a photographer. Actually, I preferred working for free or at cost as I gained experience. That way there was no pressure on me and the Bride and Groom were ALWAYS happy and the only critic was myself. Just the way I liked it. It was an opportunity to please myself with what I felt was important to work on, which ultimately would better please everyone. I never wanted to have to deal with "paying customers" who might be difficult which, all too often, happens to Pro's in the field. That is why I chose not go beyond that stage and keep it a happy experience.

Cool! Thanks for the link.

Jeepers, Creepers, I don't know what your talking about!

Threading film onto a standard stainless steel reel is a piece of cake, once you get the hang of it. You can always tell if something isn't right just by "feel".

Hmmm, Really? I never met a negative that couldn't benefit from at least a little dodge and/or burn, print contrast adjustment and at least some slight crop adjustment. Up front, we'll do without any of these.

I'm glad you would be happy without "adjustments", but let's take a look at the price of "mediocrity". Price of film, $5. Develop and "medium" 18 MB scans on CD, $16 (higher res scans $10 additional), set of small prints $12 (5x7's $17 or $10 proof sheet) $5.95 shipping. Let's see, just to develop and receive a small set of prints comes out to almost 36@$39, 24@$36 or $1.09/$1.50 each for 4x6 prints. You might find that acceptable, I don't.

I'll try to simplify. If you are standing at the same spot with two cameras, one with a crop sensor, one full frame. Each camera has the same focal length lens, say 100mm. Visualize the full image on your crop sensor camera. Now, using the full frame camera with the same focal length lens, you would need to move closer or use a 160mm lens to fill the frame with the same image at the same distance.

All of this seems to confuse a lot of people. That's why I myself, always think in terms of magnification rather then arbitrary "focal length" when using different "formats" to visualize how a scene or object will frame in the viewfinder of a particular camera of different format. 1x magnification with an APS-C (crop) sensor is achieved with aprox. 35mm lens. 1x with a FF camera is aprox. 50mm focal length, etc.

What confuses many is that same size images on crop and FF are not exactly identical because the "depth of focus" is not identical at different distance or focal length. To truly be "identical" in depth of focus, you would need to crop the FF image taken at the same "focal length" to match the APS-C image size and enlarge it to match print size. It is easier to think of it as smaller sensors having greater depth of focus or less Bokeh at a given focal length then cameras with larger sensors. Clear as mud now?

A couple of points. "If", you did find someone to do custom prints, the cost would greatly exceed the novelty of doing it. Second, while a "generic" method of developing a B&W film is "easy", getting a film, developer, development process including time and temperatures and matching them to a print paper and development to achieve a quality anywhere close to the automated color print process is NOT EASY. I can not express that strongly enough to a first timer. Unless one is committed to taking on the TIME, COMMITMENT and considerable EXPENSE to properly take up the study of B&W film processing/printing, they will find more success and pleasure shooting color film. That is simply a "hard lesson" type of fact.

If your looking to use your film camera and simply have someone else do your film processing, then you should just shoot color print film. That is the easiest means of getting something pleasing. Anything decent in Black and White is a process of developing and printing yourself, regardless of what anyone else may tell you. Color print film is designed for the automated process, B&W is not and the results will be mediocre at best. I did tons of B&W and Color in my day and understand both.

Bull Pucky! That sounds like crap straight out of marketing literature.

I had my first Nikon dslr less then a week and I was shopping for a micro prism spit image rangefinder screen. First Hand Experience, "it's the ONLY way to fly" with MF lenses. If I had to depend on the erratic green light, I would, and in fact DID, put it down in frustration. There is GOOD reason WHY split image rangefinder screens were used with almost all MF cameras, because they WORKED! You can use the "green light" to confirm focus if it turns you on, but I'll be damned if I'd want to use it to "find focus" on a steady diet. I would also strongly disagree that the reason they're not used on auto focus cameras is because they are "inadequate", that's pure horse hockey. The reason is to keep the finder from being cluttered unnecessarily for most users and possibly because the center split image "may" affect "center spot metering" slightly with some lenses.

What they did is fix the heat overload protection so it will temporarily shut off BEFORE it melts down.

Charging at a rate of 1/4 to 1/3 of battery capacity, which is what your doing, is both safe and best for longevity of batteries. Yes, they should barely get warm. At 700-800 mAh charge rates they should get noticeably very warm, but not hot. You should also keep an eye on the heat of the charger itself. I charge larger capacity 2400 mAh AA cells @ 800mAh to keep charge time closer to 3 hrs rather then 6+ hrs and the batteries do get warm but the charger I use doesn't. If charging overnight it's prudent to always use the lower charge rate when time is not an issue.

As an addendum to my post I said,

"I myself, have always had some question as to the robustness of the internal circuitry of the LaCross."

I would support that claim with the fact that the overall max current handling capacity of the LaCross is only 3000 mAh as opposed to the 20 Ah (6.5x more) current capacity of both the Opus and MaHa units.

While the LaCross and MaHa are very good chargers, they each have their quirks. The Maha is an excellent charger except for its archaic and tiresome interface which has been in need of being re configured for years. The LaCross actually had some very serious heat related issues a few years ago that have been corrected in as far as safety goes. However, there still is a design issue in that the batteries don't have a lot air space around them and tend to get get hotter especially when charging at higher rates. I myself, have always had some question as to the robustness of the internal circuitry of the LaCross.

All of these chargers have "evolved" and been improved over time. The Opus is relatively new to the market but their chargers have been evolving VERY rapidly in comparison. Firmware revisions of the Opus have come quickly to the point that the interface and options are MUCH more refined over the MaHa. I bought an Opus BT-C2400 a few months ago with rev.2.2 firmware and it's a pleasure to use and monitor and heat isn't even close to being a issue. At about $20 less it's a no brainer in my book.

The "new kid" on the block of "smart chargers" is Opus, the 4 battery models 2100 and 2400 with latest firmware are only $30-$37 and they ARE better then either the LaCross or MAHA units. I have an Opus 2400 myself. They also make the 3000 series of chargers that have the added capacity to ALSO charge specialized lithium rechargeable cells.