Road Cycling - Pedals and shoes

I am looking into some good road pedals and shoes but I don't want to spend a lot of money. My price range is between 100 - 200 dollars (US) for both of them. I was looking at the Shimano PD-R600 and PD-R540. There is a pretty big difference in price between the two pedals but there is not much information on the big difference between them. Also I was looking at Shimano shoes, they were SH-R097M and SH-R073. If anyone has any information on these products that would be very helpful. Thank you for your time.

try different shoes and chose the most comfortable ones. Don't be too price sensitive with these because a bad she can put you of cycling completely. Always, COMFORT FIRST.
Generally the shimano shoes are good. as for pedals i would consider MTB pedals and shoes if you're not into racing of having the lightest bike possible

You can find new pedals at decent prices on ebay. Also check Nashbar -- they are selling some Look and Speedplay (X3) pedals for less than $100.

Nashbar is also selling some selected sizes of the Shimano R-150 shoes at $140. That's a very good shoe because it has an ultra-stiff carbon fiber sole and that'll give you much better power transfer than a shoe with plastic soles. I had the MTB version of the same shoe from a couple of years back and it works just as well as, if not better than many expensive European shoes.

If you can afford it or can save up some more, I'd get shoes with a carbon fiber sole. If you increase your budget to $250 or so, you can most likely get a very nice pair of shoes and excellent pedals that will last you many years. If you skim on these, your feet might end up doing a lot of suffering.

That's just my 2 cents... Have fun! :-)

-Kevin