you can get a t2i with a kit lens for around $450. If you look around you may be able to find a deal and get a tamron 17-50 for cheap (someone was selling one under $300 a few days ago). and then get a memory card and make some sort of home depot handle. Not perfect, but it will give you decent results until you can afford to spend more. If you wanted to do all video, or all photo, I don't think I would recommend this, and I want to emphasize that if you want to get more into video or photo, you will need to spend some more money, with things like a tripod, a stabilizer (glidecam or shoulder rig depending on style), a microphone/recorder, more memory cards and batteries, an nd filter, a wide lens, a tele lens, and a few vintage primes. I would consider that almost the minimum complete set up for video