Quite impressive insight to a world so different than ours!

some nice stuff, given you a follow

How you finding the switchover?

fair enough canon myself so know nothing of the F5 specs. If your shooting as a normal slr why the changeover then? For the money could of tried something completely different to a modern film/dslr and gone film medium format or something

The portrait of the guard is great HW

It depends to an extent on what you're planning on doing with it.

The Canon EOS 1100D and Nikon D3100 both fall within your budget.

Spending more on a newer model will futureproof you a little bit, but it isn't necessary in my opinion (my Canon 400D is still serving me fine 5 years after I bought it) and you'd be better off spending the extra on a new lens.

The kit lens (18-55mm) that comes with those is fine for general photography - portraits, landscapes, product shots, etc. A lot of people buy a zoom lens as their next lens, something like a 70-200 or 300mm (for taking longer distance shots obviously).

If you don't see yourself taking long distance shots, want to improve the quality of your images, and are considering spending "extra" anyway, it might be worth looking at buying the camera body only, and a better lens than the kit lens.

Thought as much. You would still want to go for something around an 18-55mm or 17-50mm lens, which would cover close-up product shots through to landscape images (ie fashion shoot type).

Tamron are decent for good quality lenses at the more affordable end of the price range. It really depends how much you want / are prepared to spend.

You could, it's just whether you feel you need to get the better lens immediately.

The price difference (on Amazon at least, haven't got time to check elsewhere) between an 1100D with kit lens and body only is only 13 quid, and on the D3100 it's £50. So you might decide just to get one with a kit lens and try it out - the kit lens might be good enough for what you need.

Something like the Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II LD at £260ish would be a good, better quality option, but as I say, it might not be necessary. If you do decide to buy an extra lens, make sure you get the right fit (ie Canon or Nikon) as they are different.

Remember that using an SLR will already be a significant step up in image quality over a compact camera.

I have this lens and noticed a significant improvement in image quality over the kit lens I was using previously, but photos taken with the kit lens were still pretty good and worlds away from any compact I've used.

I think that's probably the most sensible thing to do.

Make sure that wherever you end up buying from supplies genuine UK products, and not "grey imports" from abroad. They're still genuine products, but you can have warranty issues when it's not UK stock.

Also, it's worth buying a UV filter to put on the front of the lens, saves it from getting scratched.

I would say they're much of muchness, although people quite often do tend to prefer one brand over the other.

I went for Canon simply because I previously had a Canon film SLR, and all the controls were basically the same so it was easy to switch.

Just read the reviews and compare the features and see if one stands out over the other for you.

Try Googling phrases like "Nikon D3100 vs Canon 1100D" for comparisons, as lots of people have been in the same boat as you.