moving from film to digital

[dogBoy]

My wife is a shutterbug and has loved film cameras. She's finally willing to upgrade after having seen digitals that look like "real" cameras. What camera would be good for someone that likes to use diffrent lenses, take scenery shots as well as action shots (she's on the field with all our kid's sports games getting some awesome shots).

I'm afraid I am clueless on this and really don't know what cameras are out there and which ones would be good to be her first transition camera from film.

thanks to anyone that can help :-)

~the dog

Budget

* I'd prefer sub $1000 if possible

Size

* does not matter

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

* I have no idea what a megapixel is or why they are important...

* my wife wants to swap lenses for different things. our film camera has a lense for family photos, a lense for travel and scenery shots and a lense she used for sports.

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10) since it's coming from film image qulity is very important, has to match.

Do you care for manual controls? not really sure what this means? Auto-focus? Yes, auto-focus is good.

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
family shots, travel shots, sporting events (my wife is and has been team camera person for all our kid's. She burns through 4 to 5 rolls of film per game.

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
no.

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
a lot? this could occur, but won't be standard.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
yes.

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
nope

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
nope, why I'm asking.

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
nope, as close to what my wife would consider a "real" or "normal" camera as possible.

*** actually in reading on this list the D40 looks interesting. Would this work for what I'm asking?

[KCook]

All of the DSLR cameras can get the job done, there is no one choice that knocks out all the others. This can be researched to death. Real world choices often come down to availability in local stores, features, feel (seriously), performance, price, and range of options. The Nikon D40 was very popular, it has now been replaced by the D3000. Which will no doubt also prove to be very popular. Buyers who did not pick the D40 were usually lured away by other cameras with more features, better performance, lower price, or they just didn't like the feel of the D40 setup. Here are links to more threads on DSLR selection -

Buying a DSLR under $1300 (http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44286)

Total DSLR Noob - Stop me from spending too much! lol (http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44324)

what is the difference between the nikon D60 and d3000? (http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44904)

Kelly Cook

[David Metsky]

What kind of camera do you currently have? Since you can probably reuse all of your lenses that will most likely dictate which brand you end up with.