When doing Close Up or Macro shooting you do need as much light as you can get. If you are very close to your subject you are generally blocking the light source. If you are Zooming in with a telephoto lens you are reducing your usable light by several f-stops. A Digital-SLR will help with these issues. Compact cameras have a small diameter lens that does not gather very much light and have very limited optical zoom. The D-SLR has unlimited zoom and Larger lenses that will gather lots of light and give you a sharper picture. There are lenses specifically designed fro macro photography. You can also use a light box to put your subject into for photographing. Avoid using a flash, a flash will over light and wash out your subject when doing this kind of photographing.
Another technique if your subject is stagnant (not moving at all) and will give you a great looking photo is by using a low ISO (100 iso) and using a wired remote and tripod. Dim the lighting and set your camera to a small aperture ( start around f/9 -11) and a shutter speed of 1/10 of a second. These are just starting numbers. You will have to adjust both numbers up or down to get the desired exposure. This will give you warm colors and a more natural look. The tripod is to insure that the camera is stable and the wired remote is so you don't have to touch the camera to take the photo. At this slow of a shutter speed it will pick up the vibration of pushing the button on the camera and cause a blurry photo.

If you can find it, a Digital 8 will play back your Hi8 tapes and will allow you to capture the footage directly to a computer using a Firewire (IEEE 1394) cable. The camcorder acts like a digital bridge and converts for you. There is also the Dazzle that you can plug the A/V (audio video) cables from you old camcorder into and connect the Dazzle to your computer that will allow digital conversion too.

This is a question that many have wondered.
I have used MiniDV for many years. One draw back to this format is the real time required for capture to the computer, the storage and care of tapes and the limited re-use. Hard Drive Camcorders have many benefits. No tapes to carry, instant transfer to the computer and faster finding of wanted footage. The new Flash Memory based models are similar to the Hard Drive models, plus ease of archiving, and nearly unlimited re-use. There may be some conversion time from HD to SD. The DvD format based camcorders are a little tricky to edit from.

The PowerShot G9 has higher megapixels (12 vs 8) so cropping the photos will still leave you with a larger image to print. The zoom is also higher (6x vs 4x), this is always a favorable feature. Plus the G9 has Image Stabilization. Between these two, the PowerShot G9 camera should take care of all your photo needs and more.