DSLR advice

[zagor]

Hello all.
I am looking to buy a dslr camera, never had one before or even used one, but quite fancy trying to learn something new apart from point and shoot with my normal digital camera.
I have around £500 to start with, which im hoping will get me a good camera for beginners,
As im not to sure what all the technical terms mean yet, I am reading up on it.
what would you recommend.
I would use it mainly for holiday pictures and for trying to photo the local wildlife,and scenery.
There's a grey squirrel that keep visiting thats just begging to get its photo taken.
Thanks for any assist

[dragonfly]

I'm sure you will love DSLR's, I can't use my P&S anymore as I don't know what to do with it if I can't view through an eyepeice!

Canon seems to be the popular choice of many (I'm Sony myself) and you can certainly pick up 2nd hand lenses for Canon on ebay at reasonable prices.

With your budget you might be cheaper to buy a body only and then see if you can get a good lens (rather than kit lens) off ebay.

the 2 links below should help. Ffordes of Beauly sell 2nd hand bodies which are in very good condition and give 6 month guarantees with them - this is how I started with my dslr.

With lenses look for ones with low F/ numbers as these will give you sharper images on your subject and blur backgrounds - if looking for a lens for wildlife you will need a zoom lens of 200mm as a minimum but for scenery you will be wanting something quite wide angled like a 10-20mm or similar - you won't get one lens that will cover both. I would pay more for a good lens than a good camera as its the lens that gives you the better quality. Hope this helps some.

http://camerapricebuster.co.uk/cat1.html

https://secure.ffordes.com/index.htm

[zagor]

Thanks dragonfly,
Thats given me more to think about I never thought of buying the body and lens seperate. and thanks for the links going to have a look right now