hehe yeah, he's a nice lad, hell I practice aikido with him.. but I do think his photography knowledge is not as good as he thinks. Hell I know my knowledge isn't great but when you see consistant good reviews of a product it's a fair bet that it's a good product. This is obviously the case with Pentax DSLR's.

Sadly in Birmingham there is a shortage of photographic retailers that I know of ( although I would like to find better ones ) especially those who can handle film. The Jessops in Birmingham certainly isn't bad for processing - which is all I use it for.

*chuckleS* I'm not sure, I know he keeps drooling over a leica - lol - but I think he is canon yes.

I think your probably right about the market share, only real explanation I can think of for them not stocking. Certainly isn't image and build quality (hell the 200 and 20 are far and away they best built cameras in their price brackets and above).

He was arguing even down to 'take a 20D and kit lens and compare the image to a such and such leica with a top lens on ( some cheap leica that was crap he said ) and the leica (despite being the only crap camera leica ever made ) would still top it' ( we were also discussing lenses being more important than the sensor - my argument was that in digitial the sensor is important as noise etc. can effect the quality ).

I just HAD to share this conversation with someone so here goes..

Had a conversation with someone at university who works for Jessops ( UK camera chain ). Now Jessops stock mainly Nikon and Canon with a little sony stuff.

Told him I'd bought a K200D and he's like "they're crap, we don't stock them they're so terrible" then went on about how they're cheap because they're crap. Needless to say he wouldn't listen but had to get it off my chest.

anyway feel free to ignore my little rant.. I'll go off and rub my sore forehead.

"which im sure you all will no is a beginners camera!"

WRONG!!!

It's a very good choice for a beginner but it's not a 'entry level' camera at all. It's plenty good enough to take you all the way from complete novice to semi-pro standard.

Anyway back to the question, I'll let the others guide you on that, just wanted to highlight a slight error in your post

London Camera Exchange, Worcester, had, yesterday, a K100D second hand ( as well as my old K110D).

Ahhh well I can hand hold 50mm at 1/25th without blur and if I go slower I find a makeshift tripod. Might be usefull for long range zoom tho.

Well picked her up today

Very nice solid camera

I love how the bulk of it is exactly the same as my old K110D. So no relearning buttons/menus etc. Just a few extra features to understand. For example shake reduction, I never used to use it and never noticed any shake in my pictures, so when is it used?

There's a 3rd reason people don't win

People overbid. I recently failed to win a Epson 2450 scanner... it went for £121 + £12p&p... to show how crazy that is I bought the 4490 brand new for only £144 inc P&P

The 110D is definatly 4, I assume the 200D is the same.