Thanks Brian. Almost all of the shots on this trip were taken with a Pentax K20D (a digital SLR) with one of the following lenses (all Pentax brand): 10-17mm fisheye zoom (many shots); fixed 21mm (also many shots); fixed 40mm (a few); fixed 70mm (a few); and 55-300mm zoom (a few).
All of the major brands (Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony) are nice. To me the main consideration is the lens selection that is available. I prefer the more compact size of the Pentax lenses (and the ability to use some of my older manual focus Pentax lenses as well), but they are all good brands. If you plan to mainly use "normal range" zoom lenses, any brand will do. Each one has a different feel to the controls and ergonomics.
Extreme wide-angle lenses can get pretty expensive, especially for Nikon and Canon, if that is one of your considerations. For example, Pentax is the only manufacturer that brands its own fisheye zoom. You can get the pretty much the same lens from Tokina for the Canon, but at over $100 more in price. Who knows why. The other Canon ultrawides are huge, heavy and even more expensive (but really nice lenses).
It's all so confusing.
