Ive got a Nikon D60 which i use as my "daily" camera as i cant be doing with the pokey little Point-And-Shoot (PAS) things, it may have been superceeded by now (not been keeping up) so potential old stock bargains may be available :thumbup1:
With the AS+VR kit which its a damn good starter DSLR with some nice and easy to use and learn functions. Does lack a few things that the competing Cannon has, but if your new, you wont notice.
http://www.digitalrev.com/en/nikon-d60-with-55-200mm-f4-5.6-ed-dx-vr-len-kit-2925.html
Photography in general has a "collection" side to it.
As ive just said, start out with an entry level Body with a good Lens, i cant stress how important it is to shop for a good Lens. Doesnt matter how good the Body is, if the image it is seeing is crap... your photos will be crap :thumbup1:
Once your climatized to your new kit, id save up and get a second battery, and a couple of spare memory cards, as with a DSLR you should always be shooting RAW as far as im concerned. JPEG Fine is ok if your not too fussed on quality, and you get more image space, but you suffer if you want to tweek things when you get back to the PC. But at the end of the day... you have bought an SLR so you must be interested in image quality, or you would stick with a PAS
Also get a tri-pod. This one item witll give you a great advantage for the arty shots when you want to start playing with exposure settings etc. Id budget between £50 and £100 and get yourself a good quality and sturdy tripod with fluid actions on the adjustments.
You can of course get a cheaper one, but they tend to get a little flimsy and can be awkward to use.
After that, you can go into getting a flash gun and more lenses, the most ideal kit is to get yourself a wide angle lens, macro lens and a telephoto (pervert) lens so you can start to experiment further.
Then who knows, if your cracking on really well, move up into the pro bodys, i have a D2X which is use for my more important pics .
Eventually you will end up with a tidy collection over a few years...
Oh... invest in hard drive space too! :thumbup:
All that tackle and heres some shit pics from my phone :confused1::lol: