Hello. For the past year and a half I have been taking a photography class at my school. I enjoy photography as a hobby and I wish to continue it in college, but probably won't have the money to spend on buying/developing film. As a result I have been looking around at digital cameras. What I am looking for in a camera is mainly a nice range of film "qualities" (ISO 100 - 1600), compatability with older lenses, and a good image quality. While reading some of the reviews on this board I noticed that a lot of the DLRS come with many features I'm not really interested in such as autofocous, flash compensator, and the various picture modes.

Obviously price is a factor and I was wondering if there are any digital cameras that are compatible with many lenses yet do not come with all the extra features I mentioned above. After reading the reviews I have started to favor the Pentax *ist DS but if you feel there is a camera better suited to me needs please point me in that direction.

I also have one question about DSLRs. I went to Fry's to just get a feel for some of the camera's and noticed that the lens on the cameras are very different than the ones on the 35mm SLRs at school. Could someone please explain the difference to me?

Thank you.