Hello, I'm studying Architecture in the UK and am looking for a good camera suitable for my needs, so far I've been looking at high-end bridge cameras and also entry level slrs.
If you have specific needs it will be easier to shop.
First start with the lens. No other feature matter as much as what lens is stuck on the front of the camera. Think about angle of view. Use some basic trigonometry. How big is the building and how far away are you from it? So are we talking about a 30 degree field of view or a 100 degree field? Do you need a 180 degree fish eye lens?
One other thing to get if you are into architecture -- A tripod. The nice thing about buildings is that they are happy to wait while you set up the shot. I tripod will dramatically improve your photogrphy for two reasons 1) it will allow you to use longer exposures and use lower ISO settngs and eliminate camera shake and 2) It forces you to slow down and think.
Other things you might want are a small bubble level or better one built into the tripod head and a polarizing filter to control reflections in glass.
For any kind of serious work -- by that I mean you are there primarily to make photos you will want an SLR. You may find that your field of view requirement forces you do an SLR
Will you be shooting interiors and is quality of the result important? If so you will eventually want to use some rather powerful strobes. (but at first a tripod and a long exposure is much cheaper.)
Once you know what kinds of lenses you might want now
and might want later then you can shop for a DSLR camera body. Frankly, there is not so much difference between them as people think. It's just an image sensor and lens mount with a shutter between. The differences in the specs are at a the 20% level. Most people let their budget decide which body to buy. What realy matters is which lens is place in front of the image sensor. But when you do select a DSLR you are buying into a larger system and when you upgrade the body in five years or buy a third lens it will have to be the brand you selected when you started out. So pick a company that you will still like in 10 or 15 years. This means Nikon or Canon. If you might want a tilt/shift lens some day pick a camera brand that has one of those available.
If you don't want an SLR. Look at the Olympus SP350. It has some feature you might want for architecture photos. 1) ability to add an external strobe. Let's you do bunce lighting if you turn the flash backward. 2) can save images in RAW format (you need this is you do much post processing in Photoshop or if the lighting is "tricky" as it always is it shooting available light indoors. 3) Olympus sells a quality wide angle adaptor lens that screws onto the camera. 40 all the manual control you need.
About the shift lens -- I think it's usles on an SLR. You can rent a view camera if you really need the feature. With the rented view camera the quality will be 100X better and the price much less. In fact you would BUY a view camera setup for the price of one of those lenses
