If you think film is better you are on a sinking ship.  Choices in film stock have narrowed considerably and the major camera manufacturers have all but stopped making film cameras. Why?  Because even die-hard film enthusiasts are awe struck by the advantages of digital.  No more risk of having your film fogged by airport security.  Less worry about running out of film - you might run out of memory cards but then you can always start deleting "so-so" images to make room for new ones.  You can shoot pictures at any ISO (light sensitivity) on the same memory card.  You can take a picture without flash at ISO 1600, then go outside and take your next shot at ISO 100.  You can even send the images via satellite the instant you take them.  And consider that you never have to buy another roll of film or wait to have the photos developed.  The memory card has no moving parts, is virtually indestructible and can be used time and again - reportedly, millions of times.  Add to this the ability to check in the shooting moment if you got the shot and it is no surprise that virtually all of the working photojournalists today have switched to digital.

If you are thinking of making the switch or have already, take the Digital 101 Beginner Course - free with a digital camera purchase - but well worth the $50 if you bought your camera somewhere else.  The course introduces you to digital fundamentals and gets you off on the right foot.  Digital 102 is an intermediate level course, which recaps the fundamentals and then exposes you to the neat and often extraordinary possibilities this latest crop of digital cameras provide.  The course covers the ins and outs of white balance, histograms, color space and much more.

But the great photographers of the past didn't need all this fancy equipment to take great pictures

True.  But it was no walk in the park either.  Consider Brassai, the French photographer, famous for his book Paris de Nuit (Paris at Night).  In the early 1930's, he lugged around a 6 x 9 Voigtlander camera and a box of 24 glass plates (the film of the day).  He would have to leave the aperture open for five minutes or more to take a picture and timed it by smoking a cigarette.  Would he appreciate one of today's digital cameras with 3200 or 6400 ISO, vibration stabilization and a tiny memory card capable of storing hundreds of pictures?  You bet he would.