Find a previously-owned digital SLR and a 50mm lens. A Nikon D50 or D70, for example.

Get the best camera you can afford. You'll grow into it quickly. If you can get a GOOD used camera, great. But I think the technology is still advancing too quickly to make used a real option.

If you really want to invest some money into it - as in, not just a couple of hundred dollars - there are plenty of those good starter level digital SLRs out there. As I see it, the prices between the recent and older models are not THAT great, so if money isn't that big of a deal, you can find good very good deals for cameras and accessories online. For the most amount of online manuals and the best compatibility, you'll naturally want to go for one of the two big ones: Canon or Nikon. Both have a good entry level camera out, for Nikon it's currently D60 and for Canon, the Digital Rebel XSi (or in europe, this one's known as EOS 450D). No use really going for the previous models (D50 and Digital Rebel XTi - EOS 400D in Europe) because the difference in price is about a hundred dollars with both, naturally depending on where you buy. But the difference in quality will definitely be worth the extra money. If you are going to do with a single lens, you're going to want to go for a zoom lens - and they have a decent lens with both the camera kits, so no need to buy extra ones. Of course, once you go better, you won't want to go back to the cheaper ones, but as you'll eventually notice; photography is all about the money you can invest. The more money you have, the better the equipment, and boy, is there a difference. But all that in time! For a nice entry level digital SLR kit, you're probably going to pay around $700. Buying them used doesn't help that much, because most quality photography equipment maintains around 80% of its original value even when sold on. Now, if you don't have that kind of money to put in a camera, go for the high-end digital cameras. They have some nice models out there with some nice specs, and despite the fact that those cameras might not be a match for a digital slr, they'll still grab a nice picture. But seriously, if it's photography you want... A digital SLR is what you want.