There are generally only two to choose from Canon and Nikon if you want to be professional. I've used both. In terms of camera quality I don't see a difference. The more expensive professional ones handle film perfectly, expose perfectly and take a lot of abuse like rain and wind and extreme temperatures.
Both makers also produce very fine lenses that will get you excellent results but alas they are kind of expensive of course. I find that Nikon tends to have a slight edge in terms of accessories but that is only an issue if you're into highly specialized photography as I have been. For typical photography again there's really no difference between the two makers. You'll also find sometimes one will have a feature that's attractive and the other won't. That's not an issue, the other will have it too within a year usually.
So what is the difference? Canon tends to be first more often than Nikon with innovations but to be first they often blast the stuff out to the market before it's really ready and completely debugged. So if you buy into a new technology you run the risk of getting something that doesn't work quite right though it will usually do the job. Nikon is slower with innovation and usually comes out with a similar technology to Canon within a year or less. Theirs however works perfectly, they tend to delay the introduction of new products until they've been completely tested and refined. The result is usually a better product than the Canon version which then forces Canon to upgrade their product to stay competitive.
Canon is also sexy for most people. They try to create innovative looking products and they often build in features that look really good even though they can be features you'll never use. Nikon tends to be more conservative. They're not especially concerned whether their products look sexy. They tend to build more traditional looks that have been proven to be comfortable in the hand and that feel solid. They tend to be very sensitive to how your hand will hold the camera and they tend to make sure that the critical controls fall natually under the fingers. Canon does worry about building cameras that feel nice in the hand too but their cameras have to also look sexy so sometimes sexy wins over functional.
There is also one other major difference. Canon doesn't have a problem with obsoleting their technoilogy. I have about a dozen FD lenses (that cost a fortune in the seventies) that I used to use with my professional Canon film body. None of these lenses fit on their later models or on the new digitals. So the investment in that Canon technology has been a waste of money in the longer term.
Nikon tries as much as possible to retain compatibility. Almost all of their old lenses actually attach to the latest camera bodies they have including the digital SLRs. Now the marriage isn't perfect, if it's a very old autofocus lens the autofocus many not work requiring you to focus manually, but at least the lens is still useable and still produces outstanding pictrues. So the investment in Nikon lenses tends to be better spent because I can still use an old favourite as I get new camera bodies from Nikon.
So those are a few experiences I've had with the two leading makers. Now I began by saying you only have two choices if you want to eventually go professional. The reason for that is simple. All the other makers of SLRs don't offer the incredible range of lenses and accessories that these two offer. But that is not to say the other brands are crap.
Minolta, Pentax, and to a lesser extent Olympus for instance all built really fine film SLRs that the most demanding photographer could be happy with. The only problem is that when you got into specialized stuff you were out of luck because the manufacturer doesn't have the accessories you need. So if you're not concerned about that you're welcome to expand your scope to many other brands.
There is also the odd 35 mm camera like the Contax and the Leica that are hellishly expensive for what you're getting. They do feel nice in the hand and they take a lot of abuse and they continue to work flawlessly forever. But then I can say exactly the same thing about less expensive brands and models so I've never seen these as good value at all.
Keep in mind a quality picture is dependent on the quality of the lens and how flat the film is held in the camera, nothing else. If the camera's meter isn't quite right you can compensate. If the camera doesn't have a specific feature built in you can probably buy an add on. Price is not a determinant for quality after you get beyond a certain price level.
Finally about film, Bravo, starting there will teach you photography a lot better than starting digital. But I have to caution you too. I used film for thirty five years and I shot virtually nothing but Kodachrome. My images were always outstanding and I was always happy with the results. But today I have some problems.
Finding Kodachrome isn't easy any more and when you do find it it's expensive like hell. Ektachrome is ok though I find it a bit bluish, and the same thought about Fuji but these are viable films too. Still though, it's hard to find professional films these days and processing costs continue to go out of sight.
I went digital two years ago with a Nikon SLR and I find that I'm taking much better pctrues and more pictures too. Why? Well first of all I was well trained with film which helped a lot. But more to the point, I'm not counting pictures any more.
When I want a panorama I take ten pictures twenty degrees apart and stitch them together in the computer to create an incredible print. When I'm photographing a dance or a flying insect I shoot at three frames per second which results often in two hundred or more pictures from which I can select incredible results. I could have done stuff like that in my film days by putting a lage camera back on my body that held 250 exposures and then shoot at the same rate except I'd never have been able to afford the film costs. The digital is a lot cheaper to use once you have the camera, the computer and a good image editor like Photoshop.
The other issue is conversion. It cost me over $2,000 a couple of years back to buy a professional slide and film scanner so that I could finally digitize my thousands of slides. Now I'm into a lengthy tedious process of converting all my slides to digital, a process that's going to cost me a few years since I can't do this every day. Keep in mind too it's not just a matter of scanning the slide it's also necessary to edit it usually and then burn it to a DVD to store it away.
By all means use film, I loved that medium, but perhaps don't stay with film. Instead consider digital in a few years before you accumulate so many images that it will cost you a fortune to convert them eventually. The conversion is an expensive tedious process at any time.
The one nice thing about going film today is that you can buy lenses that will also attach to the digital bodies. So as long as you stay with a single brand you'll be able to reuse all your lenses and flash later when you do go digital. I didn't have that luxury, I started in photography too far back.
Hope that helps a little.