yeah I know what your both saying but with no experience of cameras a full dslr is just gonna confuse the feck out of him. IMO hes better of learning with a bridge for a while then moving on to dslr. Put it this way if he was a new driver with no experience you wouldn't chuck him straight in a Ferrari would you? no you would start him off learning the basics first in something a bit less complicated. And Paulus ive still got an old bridge knocking about if you want it, if you can master it it might help you out with the results you get from your 400d .