Hey, you may find Ken Rockwell's website useful - quite Nikon-oriented and unashamedly so but the guy seems to give good advice. I've got a Nikon D40 and it's great for just about anything I want to take photos of with its 18-55mm kit lens. You could get a more recent 2nd hand camera similar to that (eg Nikon 5100, about £450 on eBay) and spend the money you saved on a Macro lens which would work really well for your intended subject matter. Would come to about £650, or about £500 if you went for a 3100 instead.
Ah, didn't see that bit about preferring the Sony...! Still - second hand dSLR, macro lens and some decent lighting (as per LennyRhys' suggestion) may be the way to go then
