I've had several friends take Jessops up on this offer recently.

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/77124/show.html

They also had a twin lens kit on offer which was a great deal too, but I can't find that on their website though it was available this past week in my local shop Leamington Spa.

This is a good camera for a beginner and is upgradeable and lightweight and can take all sorts of manual lenses like Leica R and Screw mount lenses.

Hmm that is a decent deal, do standard lens fit this type of camera?

I used a rellys Olympus PEN today and it felt really, really nice. I don't know owt about slr cameras but that looks a good deal.

Is that really a dslr?
A bit more info on your experiences and requirements would go a long way in finding a solution.
For dslrs you're not going to go wrong with either Nikon or Canon (other brands available).
Canon have the lenses and flash that I was looking for because I needed a flash that synched at speeds higher that 1/250sec.
What do you want it for?
How much do you want to spend?
How will you use it?

There's a few in the STW classifieds.

You can fit standard 4/3 Olympus lenses by using an adaptor, I bought one from Ebay for £50 and it works as good as a £150 Olympus one. Oh I've just bought an EP3 and apart from it being the latest and costing a lot more that EPL-1 does 99% that the EP3 does.

If you can find a twin lens EPL1, the camera kit will do from 14-150, 28-300 in old money SLR terms as you have to double Olympus lens distances for £350. The 40-150 lens costs over £200 on its own normally. It also has built in image stabilisation, to help get those more difficult shots in dimmer light.

The main thing for me is the lightness of it, it weighs far, far less than my big full size Olympus E3!

Don it's an SLR to all intents and purposes it just does away with the old style pentaprism and mirror box that makes older SLR's so big and heavy. I reckon in a few years time once they get the AF focusing fully upto the same speed as DSLR's then more and more will be going like this with electronic viewfinders being able to show 100% view with much better lightness.

Not too clued up on slrs to be honest - just started looking into it in detail. I, have had a g10 for a few years. Tbh not too impressed with it, always found it poor in low light, and not enough zoom for our holidays - for instance wildlife shots in Borneo. Wife has bought me a photography course for Xmas along with some cash towards a new camera. Probably looking entry level I was expecting £400 ish.

just to check are you after an SLR (film) or a DSLR (digital)?

It's the bit where it says it has dslr features that got me into marketing bullshit alert mode, then reading on to the Live guide where the complicated photography buttons are removed and replaced with pre-programmed setting put it another step away from a dslr.
I'm sorry but that's a computer and not a camera.

just to check are you after an SLR (film) or a DSLR (digital)?

How do DSLRs AF then?

Don, I agree, with my EP3 it took me 2 days to turn all the Live Guide malarkey off and put all the proper menus back in place, If I were starting out the Live Guide would be a good help to start out.

How do DSLRs AF then?

There are two basic ways of using Auto Focus,

Contrast measurement, smaller cameras and bridge cameras use this system, and DSLR's during Live view.

Phase detection, the way the bigger SLR's use auto focus, at the moment it's the quicker system, but in the next few years the contrast detection system is going to be improved more and more. In fact my new EP3 claims to have the fastest Auto Focusing system anywhere and that uses Contrast detection.

Here's a wiki write up on auto focusing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus

Assuming you're after a DSLR for £400 you are looking for a second hand body and some older lenses. If you're just starting out, an 18-55 zoom and 1 70-200 will cover most bases and can be found chaepish, but you do get what you pay for.

I'm a nikon man I recommend a nikon D90 (possibly slightyl above budget, but only bacause thats what I use. Go to jessops, try a few out, see which ones are intuitive, feel nice, look good etc, they all do the same thing (at the lower end of the market at least) then get on ebay and buy one cheap.

Argos have a shop on ebay, keep a look out the. I. Got a canon kit the other year silly cheap.

no, don't try, test and get advice from a shop then buy cheaper on-line 👿 Buy with them too.

PePPeR - How does the PEN handle with a 3/4 lens attached? I'd also be a bit concerned about loosing the wide angle end of the range.
At the moment I've got a old E500 and was thinking of upgrading the body to one with image stabilisation. I quite fancy the PEN if I'm dot going to lose much functionality but I have a good 14-54 lens which I want to keep I picked up in Japan when exchange rates were more favourable.

Not sure if its still running, but you could exchange Tesco vouchers for double your money vouchers to spend at Jessops

Hi Cheers Drive, the 4/3 lenses provide exactly the same field of view on M4/3 as they do normally, so a 25mm F2.8 lens on an E500 (good camera BTW, my daughter has mine), will provide 50mm field of view in old 35mm terms, putting the same lens on a M4/3 camera with an adaptor available for about £50 on ebay if you don't want to pay Olympus rip off prices still makes it 50mm in 35mm terms.

The Pen range is good but if I were going to be using the bigger 4/3 lens a lot then you'd find it a lot easier with a VF-2 viewfinder. It makes a huge difference to the usability of the camera.

TBH if I were looking to replace an SLR, I have an E3 to use when I want a bigger camera, then I would look at the Panasonic M4/3 range as they are more SLR like and come with a VF built in.

The image stabilisation is a good thing especially when using the camera like a point and shoot, as you don't have the stability that putting the camera to your eye has.

Thanks
I'm not convinced about the PEN as with a 4/3 lens and view finder on it it's not that small and full size 4/3 cameras are still smaller than other DSLRs.
I was thinking about a E-620 and was hoping that they could be picked up cheap as they aren't sold anymore but I can't find any good deals or many secondhand.