WHAT DOES IT MEAN BY SLR LOW SHUTTER Count?

This is my first time buying a slr camera what does it mean which ones are good?
is it better to only buy the body then the lens?

You can buy the Nikon D40 with 18-55mm lens for under $500. As you learn how to use it over the next few years, you should have some great skills ... in four to five years, the new cameras will be much better and you will be able to still all the lenses you have been using.

http://www.jdpower.com/electronics/ratin...

The deal with "only" using certain lenses is not quite true ... the AF-S and AF-I lenses have been made for over 15 years AND if you are willing to manually focus lenses, you can use all the old Nikon manual lenses with it.

I have and still use five of my old Nikon lenses from the days there were NO auto-focus cameras on my D100 and D200's with no problems.

As long as you don't expect the D40 (or any DLSR) to be a glorified P&S camera, you will love it.

The "shuttter count" is the actual number of cycles the shutter has been through on an individual camera ... Some companies list 100,000 cycles as a limit, others 300,000 cycles. My oldest Nikon D100 has over 180,000 cycles on it and all the shots taken with it are still perfectly exposed.

The shutter count is the number of times the shutter has been released.
A low shutter count means the camera hasn't been used much.

There are many types of DSLR good for beginners.... Nikon Canon Olympus etc.
I don't personally like the Nikon's novice D40 because you can't use just any lens that Nikon make, but it's probably ok as a starter. Personally I'd go for the D60 or D80 or secondhand you could go for D50 D70S both good cameras to start with.

Canon have an excellent range too... I've experienced the 20D 30D 40D all good semipro cameras and there is the 350D 400D and 450D aimed at novices... also good.

Take your pick..... there are other makes out there, but I like Nikon and Canon's build quality.

As far as I know, a low shutter count relates the the number of times the shutter has been used.
Though I could be wrong. If I am, hopefully someone will come along with the right answer and enlighten me...