Bumping this.
Earlier this year, I decided I needed something more than an iPhone camera for all my travels, and I bought a Canon PowerShot SX710 (30x zoom, 20 megapixels, etc.), which was one of the recommended "bridge" cameras with excellent reviews. I'm not sure if it's me or the camera, but I haven't found the pictures to be that much better than the iPhone except when I'm zoomed. If anything, the pictures require more editing, especially in low light. Night time photos (using the night setting) are better than the iPhone, but still not great. I find pretty consistently that the color seems slightly off in almost all lighting conditions.
With holiday sales, DSLRs are really cheap right now. In particular, I'm looking at the Nikon D3300, which is supposed to be user-friendly for new DSLR users and isn't very heavy. Do the experts here think I'm likely to get better photos out of that than the Canon I have? Is going from a $350 (retail) "bridge" camera to a $750 (retail, on sale for about $400) DSLR bundle enough of a jump to see a difference, or would I need to go up in price to see something substantially better?
I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem is me

. If using more of the (limited) manual controls on my Canon will get me better pictures, I'm willing to give it a try. I'll read a book or even take a course.
Thoughts / ideas appreciated!