Happy Gondorian New Year & SLR Recommendations Please?

So, for those Tolkien Geeks among my friends, "Happy Gondorian New Year". On this day, Ages ago, the One Ring of Sauron was cast into the flames of Mount Doom and his reign of evil came to an end. (I'll conveniently ignore the fact that his essence fractured and spread in all directions across the earth, just look at Paris and Brussels, not to mention North Korea.) So even though his evil still exists, we'll celebrate the New Year anyway because we can all use a celebration.

Raise a glass in celebration. On this day the One Ring of
Sauron was cast into the flames of Mount Doom and evil
was once again vanquished from Middle Earth. 

Now that the glasses of champagne have been raised and the sparkler has been lighted, I am looking for recommendations. I know a number of my readers play with photography, and I'm in the market for a digital SLR camera. I have a lot of art at the store that I need to photograph before I can offer it up for sale on Ebay or directly to other dealers, I also have much smaller items that will need photographing. The punch in the knee is that the camera needs to be affordable and not have a learning curve that will take forever to master.

I know there are more than just these three brands, and I know there
are several models available for each brand, it's rather overwhelming. 

Basically, I'm usually a point-and-shoot gal and haven't used an SLR since my Minolta of years ago. I loved that camera, but was delighted to go for smaller and lighter as well as point-and-shoot. I use my phone for photos more often than I would like to admit. I'm still not 100% sure that a digital SLR will be the answer for me because I'm very concerned about the learning curve. But I have a lot of Native American art in the shop that I need to sell. That means photographs upon photographs are necessary and the lighting isn't always going to be ideal, so having the ability to adjust f-stops, etc., might be quite important.

I've got an excellent tripod and good lights, I'll
probably need to purchase a new backsplash
drape (and those are NOT cheap). I don't have a lot
of open space for set-up, and it's going to be
a pain for the larger works. But it has to
get done. 

If you currently use a Digital SLR, would you mind sharing what you do and don't like about your camera? Would you buy it again? Or would you switch to a different brand/model and why? I know it's Good Friday and you have hundreds of things to do before Easter, but I'd really appreciate your input and opinions.

Happy Gondorian New Year to all. 

Have a wonderful Friday and if you're signing off for the holiday weekend, a great Easter. I'll be back here tomorrow for my Saturday post. Happy New Year, Gondor!