We were looking at buying a camera for my Birthday so we took a trip into Adelaide to see what the larger camera stores had to offer. The salesman showed us the Canon 300D, after holding it for only a moment I realised very quickly that it was not much of a camera; It was built from cheap light plastics and didn't make much sense control wise. The salesman then showed us the Nikon D70 which was a totally different story, it felt very well built and handled excellently but it cost considerably more.
When the salesman brought us the Pentax IstDs it was a very quick sale, such a small well built camera with a viewfinder twice the size of the other two at a even lower price than the 300D. Coupled with a Sigma 18-125 digital lens it has served as my camera system for a year and a half and I couldn't be much happier; The only problem I have is getting lenses for it, particularly in the 300mm range.