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The key to quality is the glass. If you want quality that's where you put your money, on lenses. In my experience, the more expensive cameras don't necessarily make for better images. They simply speed up the process of shooting photographs.

With these images I did give some thought to them but it was a spur of the moment type thing. The helo was taxiing in and I wanted to make certain that I captured some movement in the rotors, but I didn't want them to be completely blurred so I selected shutter priority and a exposed at 1/200. Aperture selected by the camera was f/10. I almost always shoot with autofocus. I miss the old focus prisms and I can't really trust my vision with anything else so I let the camera do it. So, not exactly point and shoot, but close enough.

With that in mind... you can find a D50 for $300 or so and the Nikon 18-200 VR for $650. Personally, I don't care for the D40 or D60 but that's mainly because they don't autofocus with anything other than AF-S lenses. This rules out the Tokina I mentioned earlier and another lens I didn't mention, my 50mm f/1.8. If that's not an issue, you might like the D40 or D60 with the 18-55mm VR lens. Kit should be less than $700 or so.

Oh... please keep in mind that for me post processing makes ALL the difference. When I get the chance, I'll put up versions of these two images before I started messing with them.