filmscanners: Getting started question

["Frank Nichols" <frank@theNichols.net>]

Hi,

I have posted a few times before and received very helpful responses. So, I
thought I would ask a real basic question...

Background:

I am just starting out with both photography and scanning. I am on a very
limited budget, so I am using my wife's Canon EOS Rebel 2000 and an Acer
Scanwit 2720s. I splurged (way over budget) for Adobe Photoshop 6.0 -
figuring I could resell it if I loose interest, or if I go on, it will scale
to anything I want to do, and if/when I buy better cameras and scanners (or
digital cameras - my dream right now is a Canon D30) it will handle anything
I try to do.

I am trying to shoot 2 to 3 rolls each weekend and then scan the results.
Each time I learn a little more about film, processing (where I get it
developed) and scanning and it's limitations, at least with the Scanwit. My
approach so far is to buy cheap film at the discount outlets and use the
cheapest processing I can find, because I am not interested in selling (or
even keeping) the results. I am just trying to understand things like
exposure, depth of field, grain, composition etc. Occasionally I will shoot
two rolls looking for differences in the film - for example Kodak Gold 100
vs. Fugi Provia 100F, and in these cases I use a "good" processing lab - at
least the shop sells and caters to professionals, so I assume it is better
than the grocery store. (And they charge about 4 times more just for
developing!)

Questions: (from a scanning perspective)

1. Should I be using cheap film/processing during this learning phase or is
this a bad thing which will cause me to develop bad habits?

2.Should I be sticking to a single film and learning how to use it and then
moving on to other etc.?

Help!

TIA

Frank Nichols