I need to know what camera to buy

I'm looking to buy a Nikon D3100 14.2MP Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm VR Lens - Black. And i'm staying in the $500 or lower. I love taking pictures and I want this to become my career. So any info on cameras would be nice and colleges if you know any good ones. But are there any better camera's out there for $500 or lower?

That's actually a good choice and as long as you only want to use relatively new lenses it will be fine.
If you haven't already done so, bookmark or visit these camera sites:
http://www.dpreview.com/...eview.com/
http://www.dxomark.com/...r-Database
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/index.shtml

Having owned and used many SLR cameras, here is my recommendation for you. Pentax K-01 is a great deal these days.

http://www.amazon.com/...zon.com/s/

If you can stand with two drawbacks- lack of optical viewfinder and the orthodox style of Pentax k-01, this is probably one of the best dslr cameras for 2012. Pentax used to sell them for $899 but the style gamble backfired and the result is- an awesome camera at an awesome price. You can find reviews online. Some of them may complain about slow auto focus but with firmware upgrade, that becomes comparable to most other SLRs.

* The image quality is excellent.
* With included 40mm lens, you can take impressive portraits and low light photos. If you like to take photos of people, this lens works out very well. (At the current price of $330 for Pentax K-01, the lens itself is worth $200! If you don't want the lens, you can probably sell it and make the camera cost you around $150!)
* If you like to take landscapes, the HDR mode does wonders. Easy to use and brings in details in shadows and highlight does not get clipped either.
* With same K mount, in body Image Stabilization, and now Focus Peaking, using my Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens is easy and it helps get accurate focusing. K-01 body and Super Takumar lens (with combined cost of less than $400) help me take portrait photos that can compare very well with full frame $2000 plus DSLRs.
* This camera is compact and its odd look lets you take candid photos of people. Bulky SLRs many times make people too serious while being photographed but with box type camera, your subjects are less likely to take you seriously but when you show them the photos, they will be amazed.

Having Canon T3i and Mirrorless micro four third Olympus PEN camera too, I can say that K-01 is a better camera and at this price point of around $350-400, it is really a steal.

The Pentax K-01 is an EVIL camera, not a DSLR.

The D3100 is bottom of the barrel when it comes to dSLR's at the moment. Anything better costs more. If you want cheaper, go secondhand.