There's lots of good advice here.
Down the road I'm sure I will be using a mirrorless, at least as a 2nd/alternative camera. After seeing the shots of the Guinness Storehouse I was really interested in the Sony, and love the concept but too expensive for me to consider starting with, more's the pity.
I'm not so stupid though as to think that spending more money (if I had it) would get me that kind of photo. I understand of course that cameras don't take great photos, people do. I have experience with audio production so am fully aware of just how important certain things are in the grand scheme - no point having a fancy body with a crap lens, and no point having any of it if you don't have technical ability, and no point having technical ability if you can't identify a great image before releasing the shutter.
4/3rds is also something that really appeals, but print-wise I'd rather have the larger sensor and pixel count of the 7100. Maybe thinking about printing is getting ahead of myself, but might as well hedge my bets, so to speak! I reckon I would outgrow something like a 60D within a year, and I can't afford to outgrow anything that quickly.
I promise I will not scrimp on things like tripod and lenses. I've always spent as much as I possibly could on project critical items in the past. I've thought nothing of dropping over a grand on a pair of studio monitor speakers for example, when 300 quid 'would do', because I know where the pressure points are.
I will buy primes for my first lenses, and now after consideration of comments here, will probably get the FX type.
It's interesting to hear people talk about deciding what kind of work I'll be doing. I thought I would do it all
If I had to theoretically describe my 'photographer personality', it would have to be travel, because I left England 15 years ago and have been living/working/traveling abroad ever since.
I WISH this passion had been kindled earlier, because I have what I think are some unique images but shot on 5-8Mp compacts, using more luck than knowledge in terms of exposure and in some cases, focus :/ With subsequent cropping they're unusable for anything other than web, and even then not great quality, which is a crying shame, because I love some of these images. Better late than never I suppose
Here's a couple more. Sorry about being an exhibitionist but these have only ever been posted on FB and I have a pathological need to share
I don't have any preference for landscape, portraits, nature, or animals, I love capturing them all equally. I've gathered I need about 3 lenses - a 50mm, something between 80 and 100, and I'd like a macro lens too for serious close up stuff. I do have a thing for black and white though, but who doesn't?