a little help with buying a digital slr please.

[kazste]

have a normal slr that uses pentax lenses, would i be right in thinking that i can use these lenses on a digital slr camera that accepts the pentax lens? If so can anyone reccomend a good camera for the beginner but would like to make A3 size prints and ideally only be spending around £250 for the camera body.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Ren-Raku]

Depending on what you're using it for...I personally use a K100, seems to work fine for what I use it for (general hobby use), but there are other options if you considered selling all of what you have and buying a better camera for the money you get from the camera and the 250 pounds.

[RobDickinson]

Pentax dSLR's still use the K mount, so your old lenses should work.

K20D and K200D are the current / latest.

[VxDuncan]

...but not unless you have the very best lenses you're probably better off getting a cheap canon 350D or 400D with cashback:
-Due to the crop factor you'll need a new "standard" lens. Your old wide angle lens will only be about standard with a croped dslr.
-Your old lenses may not provide full metering to the camera.
-Sticking with Pentax will limit your options for future lenses, many are not available in this mount, and you'll pay more.
-Old lenses don't usually perform that well with digital bodies. The digital format (and "pixel-peeping"!)tend to show up more lens defects, chromatic abberation (colour fringing), flare and chosting (due to the sensor being shiner than film).

IMO unless you have a large amount of high quality pentax lenses and won't want to buy any new ones your better off selling the old kit a piece at a time on ebay and getting an entry level Canon (or Nikon if you can afford a D80 upwards).

Save a little in the short term, spend a lot long term.