I ran a very long thread on buying a first DSLR camera and you'll see I came out with the Canon 450D. Read the thread end to end and you'll know all you ever need to know about the options of bodies, lenses, suppliers, etc. so I won' repeat it all here.
In the end the Canon did it for me on lens compatibility Vs Nikon, price and the image stabilizer on the lens, coupled with the many good reports.
If you go on Ebay and search you'll see the target price for a 450d is about £420 with free delivery and lots of goodies thrown in. They also do packages to swap lenses if you prefer. you'll also find cheaper if you buy the US 'Rebel XSi' badged version or Japanese 'Kiss', but I stuck with the UK badging.
