Here's another shot I made at Mathessin State Park, of nephew exploring rocks. He moved faster than the rocks. I've told 'Chelle some of the other pieces of the story, but to sum it up, the old manual Mamiya NC1000 from eBay is not working well for the little guy. Somewhere between "broken" and "crappy teacher." Bottom line is that all of his mages from this outing were blank. I'm looking for alternative equipment for him. New cameras in the price range I consider appropriate for a 14 year old, (I think) are pretty shyttie. This little Mamiya, with full manual controls, and three interchangable lenses, seemed to be perfect. But seems to not really be reliable in practice. Something like the Pentax ZX-M, seems to be an ideal "learner" camera. But the reviews (of the plastic lens mount) are mixed. The old cameras from the 80's seem ideal, but I've already been stuck by eBay once. Any suggestions what to get a kid (who seems willing to work hard)?

Too bad the Mamiya isn't working out.... Don't ask me for recommendations..... The Canon that I'll be giving my daughter is a pretty crappy camera too, but can be had for under a hundred dollars on e-bay.... of course you need a couple of lenses too.... It's a T-60 basic manual camera, I think I've seen it used for like $60....uses FD mount lenses (lots of them around)...but to me seems like a perfect camera for a child... It's a small body, and light. And uhmm I think you can set it for aperture priority too....? In any case I'm not sure how much you're willing to spend or what you consider shit....but that's mine right there....

The old FD manual Canons are great. Maybe I'll try a camera store that handles used equipment. They should let us run a roll of film through it.

For my 2 cents, and that may be all it's worth, I'd go for digital with as much manual controls as possible. I know a lot of people will swear by film but I think kids especially want to take a lot of shots and film and developing can get quite expensive for what will be mostly thrown away shots.