The exchange rate hovers around $0,62 CDN for $1 USD. And about $1.14 USD for 1 Euro (the Euro keeps going up but stays about on par against the USD lately). As far as going digital goes, that's what I was originally planning on, but it's almost as expensive as analog if you want to go manual - and I didn't want to start off paying $1500 for a camera. At least, with developing, I can spread the cost over quite a while, depending on how much I shoot (of course, I have credit cards, but I refuse to carry a balance over $10 - which really seems to piss off the companies lately.. but that's another matter completely :P ). I'm going back to school for my masters in September though, so I'll be able to take a darkroom class and use their facilities to start developing myself.. even if I can just develop B&W it'd be rather nice (B&W costs more than color film here - about $8-10 a roll [compared to $5 for your usual Kodak Gold color films] and an extra per print). - darkpen