| When I was developing an interest in DSLRs, I went to Circuit City that basically had Canon or Nikon. The Canon XTi was petite but fine size-wise. Nikon was a bit largish. I liked the Canon viewfinder a bit more but no major difference. At the time the XTi with 18-55 was about $800 and the Nikon with 18-135 was $1299. I was not that certain about my photo future but I did not want to spend that much, plus more for probably 3 lenses (from film days experience.)
After reading up and pricing lenses - which you should do first - the high prices for Canikon ruled them out even more.
I saw an Olympus elsewhere but it looked odd style-wise and just gave me no good vibrations like the Caniokons did.
During my browsing, I saw the KHundredD review on DCRP, and it sounded very good. I located one (next to that Oly) and it felt great in my hands. Looking through the viewfinder was a bit of a let down as there was no lens, nor, as far as I could tell, no power :-)
So, in my final decision process I saw that Pentax had a 10-17 fisheye zoom (for $320 at the time). Clinched. I bought the body-only and the fisheye from Beach, and the 18-50 and 70-300 from 2 other places the same weekend. The others came a few months later :-)
So, I went over budget a bit early, as we all do sooner or later. But I have no regrets and the K100D suits my style fine. |