Hey buddy, Have you considered to buy an Olympus camera?. I bet every nikon and canon fanatic to this site would say I am crazy, Olympus is not even an option when you want to buy an SLR, but trust me, I have seen thousand of entry level camera reviews and bought Olympus E-VOLT E_500 and Canon Rebel xTi and i can tell you Olympus EVOLT E-510 is right now the best entry level DSLR camera to the market. (It won an EISA award as the best European consumer camera 2007-2008) I t has a lot of innovations like a patented (and the only useful) dust reduction system that cleans the sensor, Built in camera Image Stabilization (so you dont have to pay for this function every time you buy a nikon or canon lens) and Live View screen mode. I told you I own an Olympus E-500 (the previous model) and i have not seen better display on any canon or nikon at any price and this is very useful when you take pictures in outdoors. Finally this is a very user friendly cam (and olympus has another prize for the highest customer satisfaction in cameras at this pice). I just can tell you I started using mine without even reading the manual. I can not deny Canon and Nikon have the best cameras for over 1,500 bucks, but if you want to buy the very best entry level camera for less than 1,000 USD you can not go wrong with Olympus EVOLT E-510. the only little issue is the CCD to this camera is smaller than APS sized canon and nikon, but if you see it as an advantage you will have a 28-84 and a 80-300mm lenses (as 35mm equivalent for the 14-42 and 40-150mm). It means the camera has a 2x conversion factor versus 1,5 or 1,6 in nikon and canon cameras. If you buy this with two lens kit for about 900 USD the package. I HAVE SAID