Olympus Evolt E-410 or nikon d40x

hi,i am a novice, rookie or whatever you call in photography.but i
like photography, and love to take pics.(specially my adorable
daughter).i have always used point and shoot dig cameras nikon coolpix
5.1 and currently i have canon snapshot 7.1.i also have a fully
automatic olympus SLR film camera.that's my only expertise with SLR
cameras.now i want to upgrade to a dig SLR. AND I AM CONFUSED.
i have 3 products in mind and i dont know what to go for.
1.Olympus Evolt E-500 DSLR Camera .8.2 mega pix w/Two Lens Kit
(14-45mm / 40-150mm for $599.( the price looks just right,and
tempting,also with new feature they say dust reduction technology.

2.Olympus Evolt E-410 DSLR Camera w/Two Digital Lens Kit (14-42mm /
40-150mm) 10.2 mega pix.for $899.
(live mode,dust reduction and high ISO are its prominent features,they
say)

and finally,
3.Nikon D40x Digital SLR Two-Lens Bonus Outfit (18-55/55-200) 10.2
megapix for $949.


i am not able to make up my mind and i dont want my investment to go
bad because i would never want to spend this kind of money again on a
camera again atleast for the next few years unless i hit a jackpot
somewhere.

please suggest....

 

You can find Nikon's off eBay pretty cheap. I have purchased my last 2
nikon cameras there. The advantage of the Nikon is the plethora
of lenses available for use.

 

Keep in mind that:

Your present external flash (if you have one) may not work on a DSLR and
digital compatible flashes can be quite expensive (so I've found). And if
you upgrade to another DSLR (same brand) you may also need to upgrade to a
new flash.

Lenses are expensive too, can you reuse your present lenses on the new
camera?

Nikon repairs can take what seems like forever. As the man at the shop
said, when explaining why my D-100 wasn't back after 3 months, Nikon is a
relatively small company with a large market share.

If I hadn't already been committed to Nikon, by virtue of having a small
collection of digital-compatible Nikon lenses, I would have gone to Canon.
I know from experience that their repairs and service are pretty quick.
These days, I think that maybe I should have just "bitten the bullet" and
gone to Canon anyway.

Ralph

 

wrote:

Pointing your browser to web page like

www.dpreview.com
www.stevedigital.com (I may have this wrong and could be
www.stevesdigital.com)

And spend around 2-4 months to gather as much information as possible
before spending your hard earned money (especially energy) on thing you may
later regret).

www.photo.net doesn't have friendly interface like most regular forums,
but you often get more professional/honest answer here than many others
those sometime like more WAR than true info. But in general they are good
sources of information.