EBay - search for canon eos ef-s (smaller body) generally simpler, but with the essential auto and manual functions, you’ll get one for £100-£150 with a kit lens and maybe another zoom lens thrown in. Then search for nifty fifty/ef 50mm, again, £40 should get you one. If necessary get an 150-200mm or use feet and walk closer and £10 for a memory card.
Will do all the basics well, loads of cheap accessories, lenses, flash, available.
Like tools and has been said, if hobby/course doesn’t stick, throw in cupboard or sell on eBay and lose a tenner; Or if does stick, work out which lens system you want to go with and buy the brand/body to suit. upgrading/swapping lens brand can become eyewateringly expensive.
Cameras can give you proper GAS.
Yep. The settings will be in different places, but it's the user that matters not the camera so much.
Any decent camera, of any decent system is capable of giving good results.
I've sold images online now for getting on for 20 years through online agencies. I've never had terrifically expensive gear, and I've managed to avoid the thing of "mine is the only brand to own, and this camera is the best."
I've made a lot more money than I've ever spent.
The main seller I use, used to be incredibly fussy about quality, both technically and artistically.
Oh and I've never used Photoshop, or Lightroom either. I refuse to have their hands in my pockets for a sub. I've used open source software.
And as said, it's the same with woodwork or anything else. You read the magazines, or look online, and it's "You've got to have this"
No you haven't.
Sometimes it does help, but a lot of the time it'll sit in a cupboard.
I used to make furniture with a Luna combination machine, a morticer and a drill. As well as a good bench, and literally a handful of hand tools that I used day to day. (Although I admittedly have other tools) India stone and a strop made from old leather belting dressed with fine valve grinding paste for sharpening.
Again, I made a lot more money from it than I ever spent.
You can always spend money. It doesn't guarantee results that reflect that money spent.