
Nikon D50 Digital SLR Camera
This is a great camera for anyone looking to get serious about photography. While it takes great pictures with no thought involved on it's fully Automatic settings, it also has an easy-to-use interface for learning to set your own shutter speed, film speed, aperture, and white balancing.
And thankfully this model has come down by more than 1/3 since I bought mine 2 years ago. Another great thing about the Nikon D series is that even all the latest lenses to come out in the next few years will still be compatible with this most basic model.