the digital rebel is a great camera for the $ based on the samples i see.
however, the market for run of the mill smut pix is pretty saturated so to get anything
to convert you must think outside the box.
so i would suggest you forget about fancy lighting setups and go very basic gonzo style shooting high quality images in avail light with a good camera body and a good fast lens.
so i would suggest if you are looking at entry level canon due to low price point you go to ebay and buy a used canon 5d with the fastest prime you can buy for it within your budget, ie f/1.4 50mm.
many will pooh pooh this idea, however IF you shoot ONLY in avail light with this hardware combination changing your camera position and capturing interesting gonzo style visuals shooting nearly wide open this hardware will give you a visual "style" which is different, and beautiful and can be very erotic because the limited DOF will allow you to selectively blur out extraneous image areas to allow you to edit in camera which will increase workflow speed and you can produce high quality imagery very easy that will look different and surfers WILL click on...and your workflow will be fast, virtually no post production you will basically edit in camera because your exposures will always be spot on because you are not fumbling around with the learning curve of strobes which require lots of flash testing.
some of your most beautiful and best converting shots will be very extemporaneous---the type you do not get when fussing around with posing books and stock lighting setups.
that type of shit stopped converting about 1998.
and you will be starting with pro level hardware, the 5d can actually produce good images at 800-1600 iso and up, so you can really capture the beautiful moody images that quality erotica requires.
and when you trade up you can easily dump the hardware on ebay and get 85% of what you paid because the 5d has a cult following and used lenses (L series) hold their value well.
good luck.
