From this recent flurry of posts, I realise that I am far from being the only person who felt more comfortable with traditonal systems. I'm also stunned to discover that anyone, who thought of himself as a photographer, might have been defeated by loading a film! Okay, I make an exception in two cases: the Nikon F4 which caused me many a blush with its horrid, flawed, 'improved'! self-loading system, and the venerable Pentax 67 11 where the fear of dropping a film when loading and (worse!) after use was a constant sweat-making device. The M Leicas were tricky, but then I seldom had exposure to them, and never once I worked for myself.
But there we are: I set my digis as near to manual as I can make them, and so far, so good. I have but one autofocus optic and then only because I couldn't get it manual. As I age I fnd my eyes fail somewhat; maybe the time might come when af is a blessing, but as I'll probably have lost my driving licence by then, it becomes academic. The vegetable state beckons.
As to the relative difficulties of 'learning' photography: looking at the brief, easy few lines with which the Nikon F3 brochure explained DOF, exposure etc. with the many pages that the Nikon digi offerings require, the comparative simplicity of the one over the other is clearer than I am able to state in my own words.
Give the choice, I wish that the Leica system of a digi back had existed within the Nikon world. It would be nice to pull the old-but-as-new F3 from the safe and use it again! That beautiful, accurate, split-image finder!
Rob C