Camera costs are falling faster than a bowling ball in a black hole. Case in point: The Olympus E-620, an inexpensive digital single-lens reflex camera that won't weigh your shoulder down, is easy to use and takes fine pictures in a wide variety of conditions.
Costing a mere seven hundred bucks, including a 14-42mm, f3.5-5.6 zoom lens, the E-620 combines a decent sensor, a fast shutter, reasonable optics and the aforementioned pint-sized price tag. It's a good starter camera for someone who just graduated from point-and-click school and wants to get into DSLR University.
I used the e-510 for awhile and liked it. The Olympus sensors are especially decent outdoors, but 510 had some indoor autofocus issues. I'm wondering if they cleaned that shit up.