I am finally ready to put down the money for a SLR camera. I want to spend less than $700 and I want to buy it from Best Buy since I can get no interest for 18 months on my credit card there. I am not all at all experienced with digital cameras, but I love to take pictures and I want something that will not have that high a learning curve. I will mostly be taking photos of animals/landscape.

Well, if $700 is your budget and you want to buy from Best Buy, IMO, then you should head on down there and buy the most expensive Nikon or Canon that you can afford. My preference leans towards Nikon as I think that you get more features per dollar, but less resolution and I believe a smaller selection of good lenses. However, I believe that the Nikon will produce better pictures directly out of the camera, which may be good for a newbie or anyone else who doesn't enjoy post-processing.

ETA: The Nikon D5000 is almost exactly $700 at http://www.amazon.com/. Find a review at the following URL: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond5000/

ETA2: If you want to go with Canon, I see that the EOS Rebel T1i is around $690 at http://www.amazon.com/. Again, however, I recommend Nikon even though I have shot with Canon primarily up to this point.

get an inexpensive body and spend the rest on good glass.  Glass is the most important thing.

-Mark.

I don't think that Best Buy sells a cheap enough body to also allow him to afford good glass on a $700 budget. You might consider getting a 50 f/1.8 though for low-light and/or portraiture.

http://www.dpreview.com < arfcom of cameras

If I only had a $700.00 budget I would either save up and go to a real camera store (Best Buy is limited in camera body and lense selection), or go to KEH.com and look at their offerings as most of what KEH has is good condition used bodies and lenses.

I purchased my camera as a kit (body, two lenses, memory card, camera bag and a few other goodies) from Amazon.com.  I purchased the Pentax K20d as it would take my old glass for the K-mount (but there is a conversion factor to use the older lenses so a 50mm old lense is equivelent to a 70mm on the digital body).

Dave

edited to add that KEH.com has many Canon kits and a few Nikon kits that fit your budget or go a hundred dollars more. All in all the price range was ($400-$800) for the kits.

Buying elsewhere and paying interest may be cheaper than buying from Best Buy and paying no interest. I got my Pentax K20d with the kit lens for $699 several months ago. Pentax's entry level SLRs are cheaper. In comparisons, Pentax tends to do well in the "bang for the buck" department, offering features not available from other manufacturers for less than $1200 or so.