[Tazzers]

Feel and handling aside, you have £900. a D90 with a 18-105mm kit lens (which is by all accounts very good) will set you back about £800 leaving you with enough for a memory card or two and a little left over. That would see you for the time being but have you thought about the D5000?

You could have one with an 18-55 VR kit lens for £530. Then you could spend £70 on memory cards and £300 on a nice macro lens. The only drawback here is that any lens you want autofocus to work would have to be HSM or AF-S, thats not really an issue for macro photography as manual focus is recomended but still...............

So what about Canon?

An EOS1000D with an 18-55mm kit lens (no IS) is less than 400 and I think you are better catered for with regard AF lenses. I'm a Nikon user so I'll be put right here but I don't think Canon put an AF motor onto any of their bodies so the lens system comes complete with AF unlike the Nikons (I've got that wrong haven't I?). Anyway that would give you £500 for the rest of your kit. Going up a step and into roughly the Nikon D5000 bracket is the EOS450D coming in at less than £500 with an 18-55mm kit lens, this time with image stabilisation.

Olympus:

I have always been tempted by the Oly's. I know you can still get an E420 twin lens kit for less than £400, don't discount last years models, they might not have as many features but they will still do what you want them to do.

Unless of course you want HD video.................

Sony.

I have to make a comment about the new Sony A3xx series feel and handling. Personally I do not like them at all but the older A200s feel much nicer and review very well. Warehouse Express are still selling A200s with an 18-200mm superzoom lens for £530.

Pentax (be still my beating heart)

K20D with an 18-55mm lens is just shy of £600............................

The Samsung GX20 is basically a Pentax K20, you can have one with a kit lens for about £550.

What does that leave us?

Panasonic. Strictly speaking I'm not sure Panasonic Lumix cameras are DSLRs as they have no mirror (I've got that wrong as well haven't I?), they review well though prices are a tad high because the systems are newish............ oh hang on you can have a G1 with a 14-42mm lens for around £450.

Nobody makes a bad DSLR thats true, look out for a system with a good range of lenses, Canon and Nikon win hands down in this respect.

I've written too much again. Sorry.