New camera time.

[Bobster]

& yet before digital we all happily got along with ISO 400 or occasionally 800 at most, never would have dreamt of 1600 let alone 3200 ...

well that might have been what you did, but i used 1600 (black and white) and sometimes used 800 and pushed it to 1600 (with a little darkroom tweeking to help )

[daza]

Right just got back from a touchy feely session at jessops, I basically got the bloke to take out every DSLR they had in the cabinet.

But out of all of the ones I tried the canon 400D felt more at home in my hands compared to all the rest.

He also said if I wanted to go back again and have a tryout taking photos for a half an hour that would be fine so I might go back in a couple of weeks to see how it shoots.

[joshwa]

The Pentax K110D is around £240 including lens from Amazon. Seems like a bargain to me if you're after saving money.

The Canon 400D is a good choice too (although the kit lens is a bit soft), The Olympus E-410 is also a good choice.

However, the budget Nikons (D50, D40, d40x) seem to be overly limited compared to the others lacking auto-bracketing etc, and are slightly less intuitive to use, but come with a good kit lens.

Go for the one that feels best though, they are all good and capable of excellent results.

Are there any recommendations from the course? eg, will the teacher be expecting everyone to be using Canon for example?

[daza]

Are there any recommendations from the course? eg, will the teacher be expecting everyone to be using Canon for example?

Nop no recommendations, its not all to do with the course tbh, Ive been thinking for a while about getting a DSLR to expereiment with and being on this course it jsut seems like a good time.

I had a feel of a pentax in the shop the 10mp version (not sure on model), and it didnt feel so good heavy and cramped was what I would say.