Hi Colin,
I'm a beginner that started out like you: with widefield photos on a tripod with my Nikon D7000.
I bought 6" f/5 newt on a crappy EQ mount out of curiosity, not expecting it to be useful for astrophotography. I had low expectations, and it has met them. It's been good for visual, and for learning about how to find things in the sky and how to polar align. It is FAR too shakey for photography. You can't take pictures of stars with it. At all. It can be used for lunar shots because the moon is so bright that a short shutter speed means the shake doesn't matter, but that's the limit of its use for photos.
Instead of going down the road of heavy and expensive guided mounts, I got an iOptron SkyTracker. With a close-enough polar alignment, 30" exposures are easily achiveable with no star trails (the D7000 can't do longer with it's built-in intervalometer anyway). I got some pics I'm really happy with of the Saggitarius region a couple of weeks ago. (
Flickr Link)
There are a few camera mounts that are similar, and they're all good for the type of photos I want to take. YMMV.
:-)