I was wondering, what would be a good start-up camera and extras to take portraits and general photography for a beginner?
Anything, and also everything. It all depends on what you're after. Consider these questions... Would you prefer digital or film? Do you want something with lots of controls that gives you complete control over the image, or would you prefer to concentrate on composing a good shot and have the camera do the rest for you? Do you want something pocketable or is that not important? How much do you want to spend on it? They may not be in order of importance, but answering those would probably help us come up with a suggestion. By the way, welcome to TPF!
^100mm? usually 50mm is the standard, unless that's MF, which I doubt. It's usually very beneficial to start with a dinky old manual focus film SLR. a pentax k-1000, canon ae-1, nikon fm2, ricoh, kiev, or basically anything of that sort would work. If you work in manual most of the time you'll learn a HECK of a lot quicker than if you got an autofocus film or digital body.
While your first decisions will revolve around photo gear, please don't forget that these are only the tools, though they are important in their own right. Think of them as being similar to a painter's brushes. What is far more important is developing your abilities in understanding light and composition. Without these skills, you will be in the position of someone who owns a violin but doesn't know how to play it. Always remember that many great literary works were written with paper and ink and not with the latest gee-whiz word processor. Many great photographs were made with equipment that the modern amateur would consider quite primitive. In other words, whatever gear your budget allows will be good enough to produce great prints. It will be how you use the gear, rather than what gear you use, that will really matter at the end of the day.
On Practicas: some have annoying mechanisms. My IVB, for example, requires that I cock the shutter in order to drop the mirror and see through the viewfinder. There are many other newer TLR's which are a bit more advanced in mechanics and which also make use of the screw-in lenses. The Mamiya 500 is a good example.
That's puzzling and not representative. I owned several different Prak's in my teens and they are inexpensive manual SLR 35mm cameras, conventional in all respects... jor133d here is an example of what i was suggesting to you http://www.marriottworld.com/praktica/mtl5.htm
Best suggestion is to go to local stores and pick up a few cameras. Film and digital point and shoots. Film and digital slr's. See what feels good. Knob sizes, control locations. Most point and shoots, digital or film will mostly have zoom lenses covering a good range. If you go SLR route, film or digital. A standard zoom lens say in the 28 to 75mm (varies) range is a good all purpose lens for snap shots. After you get that and learn a bit. You will have a better idea of what you may want next.
