I tried photography in my 20s and loved it, but it cost too much money, and I could afford to shoot so little film that I learned very little, and after about a year I had to give up the hobby as too expensive. In that year or so, I probably didn't take more than a dozen rolls of film -- if that. I ended up selling the camera to be able to afford a car I needed.

I got a Canon Powershot S3 IS in May of 2006, though, and over the next five months I shot well over 20,000 pix! Since improving any skill requires practice, digital has allowed me to learn much more quickly.

I sure wish digital had been developed 30 years ago!! I've never had a more fulfilling hobby.

Update -- 2007:

A couple days before New Year’s, I upgraded from my Powershot to a Nikon D200 and have been enjoying photography more than ever before. But this hobby certainly does consume vast amounts of time.

I couldn’t wait to be able to shoot in RAW format, and although it does, as advertised, allow more effective post-processing, it also requires that every single shot get at least a bit of a levels tweak. It sometimes seems to me that my life is divided these days into only three activities: my day job as a lawyer, taking photographs, and sitting at the computer either editing pix or posting them on Flickr. Food and sleep have almost become distant memories from the past!

Nonetheless, it is a fulfilling hobby and never more so than after joining Flickr. I’ve met many really great photographers here -- each of them very generous and encouraging -- and it certainly is heart-warming to receive an occasional accolade from Flickr folk.