I'm in the market for a new camera. My little Lumix has been a faithful companion for the past four years, but it's time to move on to greener pastures. I'll keep the Lumix around just to have something to take to family sporting events and monster truck rallies - basically, it would retire to being my grocery getter. Nobody takes their Corvette to buy milk and eggs.

My husband has been sniffing around for me, and his dad managed to track down an Olympus Evolt 500 for me. The E-500 model has seen two upgrades since its launch (E-510 and E-520), and of the cameras that I've been looking at, it seems to be the most cost efficient. Brand new with 40-150 lense, it weighs in at around $499.

I have the option to pick it up around $300, almost new with the same lense.

The problem inherent in the system is that I'll be missing out on two full sets of improvements, of which the 520 seems to be a bit of a step backwards in overal picture quality from the 510 anyway. No huge deal.

The bigger issue is that, while the E-500 takes pictures with less noise, it's also a great deal softer in terms of image quality from the Canons I've been looking at. Seeing as I'm a huge macro photography nerd, this is sort of a dilema.

In steps the competition - The Canon Digital Rebel EOS 350D.

It shoots with slightly naturally higher ISO speeds (which means more noise), but the trade off between noise and sharpness isn't as readily apparent as it is with the E-500. The noise is increased extremely marginally, but the sharpness is increased by a factor of four. At least. Speaking of sharpness, the E-500 has a tendency to make up for its inherent softness by oversharpening fine lines, especially in over and underdeveloped areas, giving it a slightly jagged look.

Nothing beats a Canon at higher ISO speeds, but I really won't be shooting at anything above 400 anyway. I don't do action shots and movement photography, so to me, it's not a huge issue. Still, the 350D performs about the same at 800 ISO as the E-500 does at 400. In short, if I ever wanted to snap at a higher shudder speed, I'd be better off with the 350D.

The 350D also costs about $100 more, though the standard 18-55 lense is about the same as the Olympus 40-150. The 40-150 is the better lense for me, without a doubt, than the 18-55. Olympus glass is cheaper by far, and that's a big factor in deciding which I'll buy.

I'm leaning towards the 350D, but only if my father-in-law can find one at as good a price as the E-500. Otherwise, I can't justify paying so much more for such little difference between the two. Really, I would prefer to have a naturally sharp camera over a naturally soft one, but I guess that I can always sharpen it up in photoshop if I need to. That usually leads to more noise (which would completely defeat the purpose of getting a DSLR with noise cancellation), but I guess that you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Thoughts?