I've got the canon 350d, the vast majority of dslr are great cameras, be that from canon, nikon, olympus, sony, fuji, etc etc, however you can take good shots with a non slr, either with whats called a "bridge" camera, its like an slr but without the interchangable lenses, some do have electronic viewfinders, which I would personally avoid like the plague, or with a point and shoot, the point and shoot are good, but suffer from shutter delay, so as long as you can press the button before you want the picture taken then you capture what you want.
at the end of the day you have to work to your budget, but if you can invest in a 2nd hand dslr I doubt you would regret it, you can find them for about 150ish if you look about and then add lenses as you can afford/want to
sometimes the wait is worth it
Phil