[richard plumb]

I'm fairly set on the 350d, but I'm wondering what you'd recommend as a good starter package. Here are what I think I've narrowed it down to:

1) Simple body + kit lens from jessops (want the 'pay 2007' option). Then play with it until I know what I want next. Cost - £580

2) Body only from Dixons (£499) + sigma/tamron 18-200 from jessops. Total cost around £770. Seems a nice all in one package for learning with.

3) Body + kit lens + sigma 55-200 from jessops - £699. Gives me the same reach but need to swap lenses.

Coming from a P&S background (well, sony V1), I find the idea of swapping lenses a bit scary, and I'd prefer to avoid carryign around extra lenses if I'm with the kids on an outing for example, and if I only took one I wouldn't want to be too limited (eg if I took the 55-200 but needed a bit wider)

(1) is obviously the cheapest and simplest to start out with. (3) I think I'll avoid, as the sigma 55-200 is only £110 separately, so there isn't really any penalty buying it later if necessary.

But if I find I want some more zoom quite quickly and wanted the sigma 18-200, it'd end up about £60 more than just buying (2) initially.

any thoughts?

[Astaroth]

Personally... if you are going for the standard packages then there are cheaper places than Jessops and Dixons... if you want "buy now pay later" there are always the options of interest free credit cards... both require you to be over 18 and a 1/2 decent credit rating.

The only 2 reasons why I got my camera from Jessops recently was because I wanted the USM version of the 18-55mm lense which is a unique package to jessops and as I get a corporate discount from them for working for an insurance company. If it wasnt for that I would have looked elsewhere.

I personally do like my kit lense... I wanted a 300mm zoom for the purposes of wildlife photography but having also come from a point and shoot compact I doubted I would be initially comfortable (in many sense of the word) carrying a long lense for every day use

[richard plumb]

I don't want another credit card, already have three (although nothing really on them)

Jessops kit is 579. Cheapest I've seen it is park cameras for 555. I'm happy to pay the £24 difference to be able to pick it up easily from my local branch(and as importantly return it easily if need be)