Thanks for all the advice and comments.

I think it's pretty clear that i'm definately a novice as some of the things in this post are losing me !

We don't have a significant investment in lenses, in fact the SLR we have jut has the lense which probably came with it.
I think our film SLR is towards the budget end, it's a Pentax MZ-50 with a 35-80mm lense, so you can tell me whether the lense is worth keeping ,,, be honest

My wife (who bought the camera) has no real clue how to use it, apart from point, focus and fire and the problem is that you never know how the picture is going to come out, so you tend to leave the auto settings on.

I've seen the Pentax *ist DS DP Review Preview Pentax *ist DS which looks interesting and seems get good reviews, and this fits the upper limit pretty much of what i'm prepared to spend. The D70 also comes highly recommended here of course. A 20D is just too expensive i think for my budget.

But here's a further question which i need advice on.
I'm confused about lenses, though our shots are likely to be the normal holiday kind.
- Nice View - i.e. long shot
- Interesting thing / animal. 30cm - 3m type shots.
- pictures of buildings etc.
What would I need to be able to do this. What would you recommend?

Some of oyu also mention fixed f Again, thanks for the adivce. It seems to point that I wouldn't go wrong with any of the DSLR's really, though i am keen on the D70 and *ist DS (on looks and reviews alone)