Just my thinking. You want to learn don't get a DSLR, get a decent point and shoot and before jumping into it, learn to take a good picture first! I use a point and shoot with my dogs. Camera rides in a pouch on my belt and this camera rivals my DSLR for quality of photo's. But it wasn't actually inexpensive in my mind, little over $600! But for everything a camera can do, it can't compose the shot. Neither can it control the shutter release or which aperture and shutter setting it on. A camera is nothing more than a tool to help you capture a scene! The guy shooting the camera capture's the scene! I have had a number of different cameras over the years and truth be known have never learned to use everything any one of them could do. I doubt many people have ever learned to do everything with their camera it was designed to do! been doing digital about 24 yrs now and when I got my first one I also got my first computer and first printer at the same time. Taken a long time to get to where I am today but have just started selling a few and actually it was worth the wait. Still can't use everything my camera has in it! As difficult as it is the learn what a camera can do, it's more important for the shooter to learn how to get the best compositions! Only then can, maybe, all those things a DSLR can do can help you. Writer some years ago in a photography magazine also taught class's on photography. He said he started out his students with the least expensive camera they could find, lot of old box cameras. His feeling was until the shooter learned to compose a scene they would never take a good photo.
