I'd steer you towards Canon, Nikon or Olympus. Not necessarily in that order.

I've really liked the quality of Robert's photos and found out he uses an Olympus E510, 10 mp DSLR. I waited patiently on the auction site and got one with only 7,000 actuations, 14-42 and 45-150 lenses, and Lowepro case delivered to my house for well under $300. Not bad for a $1,000 retail camera when it was released.

There are tons of deals like that out there with all the good high quality brands if you don't mind going used. Photographers are more radical gear geeks than guitarists ever will be so they often get rid of their gear to get new stuff. You can often get some good deals because of this.

What ever you do, just stick with one brand so that your lens collection (the most expensive part) stays consistent with any body updates you might desire. Buying all new lenses is really pricey. Lengthy research will be your best friend too. Find out what features you think you'd use in a camera and then look at models that will do it.