It's my 10-year-old's birthday next week and he's told us he wants a camera... But not just any old camera. He wants a camera like I have.

Whilst I'm not about to shell out $2000 for a Canon 5D Mark II for my son's birthday (business ain't *that* good!), he still favours a more mature approach to photography and wants to learn it rather than play around with a compact or child's toy. He's relatively mature for his age, so I wouldn't insult him by giving him el-cheapo child's toy.

He'd obviously prefer a DSLR that features video acquisition as well as digital photos, but has a preference for shooting images rather than video.

The Canon 1100D is not available just yet where I am, and anyway, I think it's still a little pricey for child's birthday present.

I suppose I could give him my old Canon 350D which I still have, but would prefer to give him something new rather than a hand-me-down.

Any ideas?

what about the GH1, GF1?

Give him a price limit and have him do the research.

Of course, you do realize that it won't stop with just the camera purchase : )


Mark

Pentax K-X?

That way he won't be able to "borrow" your lenses.

Plus there's plenty of old, cheap manual glass for K-mount out there so he'll be able to save his pocket money and get a few.

I'd get him a higher-quality, small, fixed-lens camera for a start. Let him learn and experiment with it and if he wants to advance into something bigger and much more expensive, there's plenty of time for that later. Something like a Canon G12 or one with similar qualities and HD video.

Panasonic DCM-LX5. Video is AVCHD Lite or Motion JPEG. $400.