An advantage to starting with digital: Instant gratification. If you're one of those that learn by messing up every way possible (like me) digital is better because you can immediatley see the results. Another advantage: It's expensive, but a large CF card will let you get hundreds of shots without changing or otherwise worrying about film. When I carried a film camera, also had to worry about carrying film. But it is a lot more expensive (at first) to get the same functionality with digital and film. Worth the price difference? Up to you... (I started with a practically all manual film SLR and now in love with digital.)