Hi Rocky - I'm not in the amazing pictures club yet but I want to try to help you to at least know some questions. Because my experience is with canon, this may not be entirely correct but here are some ideas that, I hope, are helpful to you.
1. Find out if the lenses that she has are compatible with the nikon digital SLR cameras on the market............any good sized retailer should be able to advise on that. It's likely that some lenses will work and that would then mean it would be smart to stay with Nikon as a brand. Lenses are fairly expensive and this would get her started without having to buy both camera and lens
2. You can view the Nikon models at any good sized online retailer like B&H photo in New York, to get an idea about the different levels. I would guess that many operational functions are also similar for Nikon moving from film to digital...........as is the case with canon.
3. Camera bodies are sold with all of the software needed to download images to your pc as well as do some adjusting and saving and file organization. If you do a google search on Nikon SLRs - it will likely lead to some user forums that can also give you some ideas as well as sometimes find good values on used gear.............fredmiranda.com is worth a look.
Hope this helps.
sarge
