but, I know next to nothing about it, so ill begin with the question of, what camera should I get? Budget is about $500.

This post was edited by Asilia on Oct 18 2009 10:51am

sony A200
10.2 MP, cheap lenses (look for them in pawn shops), stability, & you can use the same lenses to upgrade to higher end sony cameras.

Either that or a Nikon D50

LSRs.

Another thing : What kind of photography are you interested in taking?

This post was edited by onepagememory on Oct 18 2009 01:07pm

haha. photography.........

haha. wut.

I love how everybody is trying to start photography sooner or later

welcome.

its an incredibly useful skill to have when it comes to graphic design.

I think it´s mainly the fun part of photographing that makes me love it.

I have a canon rebel xs, I got it for around 550 or so, I love it

I'd stay away from Sony ... their bodies are so-so but worse yet their glass is so-so ... while the Zeiss stuff is usually excellent but costly. If I had to choose between Nikon or Canon it'd be Nikon. But you will pay more for these two outfits based on their name. Some of their lenses are good, some are so-so and the same for entry level bodies. Sometimes Canon's QC is sloppy when they rush to market on things. Olympus offers very competitively priced kits and they make excellent glass even in their standard grade lenses. Their bodies have in-body IS which is nice as with Nikon and Canon you will pay for in-lens stabilization or not depending on which version of the lens you buy. The Olympus bodies aren't perfect, they suffer from high ISO grain but that's the only limiting factor I have experienced and I shoot everyday. I haven't looked much into other makers of cameras with the exception of Leica and Hasselblad but these aren't in the reach of most.

I've shot with Nikon, Minolta, Sony, Olympus, Samsung, Yoshica, Leica. I have friends who use all of the above and then some. Each outfit has its strengths and weaknesses. I would suggest you get over to DPreview and personally look and read things. Also flickr is good because of the forums connected with the various topics, subjects, cameras and lenses. You can learn some things there too. And when you go to buy ... get it in your hands first. Some look great on paper but feel bad in your hands.

Note: This post is not intended to start a flame war on brands. Just adding my opinion on the matter.

thats if your in that industry..