Plink: the pancake is the 24mm 2.8, it's pretty good and pretty cheap too. It gives you like 38mm equivalent in the Canon T3i, so it's a normal-wide lens, not really a wide lens. But it should be a lot of fun and all you need. The Sony point and shoot I had for years had a 38mm equivalent, by coincidence. We made it work just fine.
Clav. If you have a low budget and no video needs, get an older camera with a manual lens to play with. This is my most used setup:
Pentax K20D (will cost you about 200-250 dollars).
Lens: Rikenon XR 50mm f1.4 (will cost you about 50-60 bucks) - it's a totally manual lens other than aperture automation, meaning you have to learn to use the camera's manual mode. And focus manually. But it gives you these kind of results (after doing some post processing of course):
sidewalk vase by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
by the post by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
dogwood time by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
ready to fly by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
(the last one was cropped)
The kit lens (18-55) will usually come free with the camera at that price, and is an ok lens as long as you learn to live with its limitations, which is, if you are indoors, you will have to use the camera's flash pretty much all the time (or get a dedicated flash and bounce it if you feel fancy, my 25 dollar Pentax vintage flash works great). But at least you'll be able to use the Program (auto) modes.
My most liked Flickr picture was taken with the kit lens:
Sitting Pretty by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
This is also the kit lens:
Flamingos by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
Just like with Nikon, there's a 35mm lens for Pentax that is a "normal lens" (equivalent to that 50mm lens that your dad or grandpa had on their film cameras, and that was all they needed!). But the Pentax version is cheaper than the Nikon and just as good. On Amazon right now you can get it for 146 new or 118 used. The price fluctuates and it's not uncommon for Amazon to sell it for 125 if you wait a little. It's a GREAT lens and lives on my wife's Pentax K-r (which is newer than my K20D, has video capabilities with manual focusing, and can be found for about 250-300 - though I found mine for 150 on Craigslist).
This is that 35mm lens on the K20D:
bee by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
pescadores by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
looking back by
ChristianRock, on Flickr
This last one was cropped down a lot and still looks sharp enough.