Favourite lens

Me too if possible Rod, but was in the lucky situation of my mate being the manager of the local Jacobs before they went under so was able to see items in the flesh, plus being in the business he has more equipment at home than a lot of shops stock!! A lot of used stuff that came into the shop he bought so I always had a lot to handle!!

But when you do go down the online route I would 100% recommend Mifsuds of Brixham. They certainly did me a very good deal, promptly and excellent quality items

I put Canon first Dave because that is what I'm using now, and although it has its limitations on the whole I'm very pleased with it. 

You won't be disappointed with the real thing but expect Rod to champion Nikon

But to be fair there is not a lot to choose between either marque

I have been Canon for 30 years or more apart from 2 years with Olympus starting my digital career off, simply cos the 'package deal' came at a much better price than the equivalent Canon so made sense in case i was not enamoured by the digital onslaught

I bought the Camera Shopper magazine Dave, that's where all my confusion started. They compare 6 cameras under £350.

Canon EOS 1200D, Canon EOS M, Nikon 152, Nikon D3200, Olympus Pen E-PL5 and an Sony Alpha 500.

To my surprise the Olympus came out top, with the Canon EOS M a close second. I can't really be thinking about spending much more than £350 at the moment that's why I was looking at this range. 

No surprise if was to suggest the Canon 1200D then??

I am thinking of treating my 2 nephews to 1 each when I get chance to speak to them together.

The Olympus is much smaller than all the rest, so bear that in mind

The Canon 1200 and Nikon 3200 are very good solid bits of kit

I did read that Olympus was quite a bit smaller than the others Dave, it's also a make I've never used. I'm leaning very strongly towards Canon. I'm a bit dubious about Nikon,  it might be quite unfounded but a couple of years ago when David was fishing some ducks pushed his bag into the river, thus rendering his P&S Fufi FinePix dead. He claimed on the insurance and we purchased a very nice Nikon P&S, no matter what we did we were not happy with the pictures, no amount of fiddling made them right, so we sold it and he bought another Fuji on Ebay for £16, it's ideal for him not being very technical and the pictures are far better than the Nikon.

Hope I haven't upset Rod !!! 

Upset me? Never! Where I come from, people from other places try all the time.  

When I started pressing shutter releases, I had two Pentax SLRs. I loved them. Well I wasn’t married then. I also had an Olympus FTL (Pentax mount) and the 50mm lens was stunning. Pentax however, kept mucking about with the lens mounts, as did Olympus so I spat my dummy out of the pram and bought two Nikon SLRs.  The Pentax bodies felt great in my paws, and soon I found the same with the Nikons. When I plumped for digital, I stuck with Nikon because, although the bodies were a lot bigger than my beloved film machines, they still felt good, sensual almost. So, I said hello to auto focus and zooms for the first time.

Mrs B has a Nikon compact and gets fine results. 

I doubt if there is much difference in the quality of Canon, Pentax and Nikon. Sigma DSLRs look rather swish too!  The choice is vast.   

Camera brand choice might make a good new forum topic!