Carrara 8 pro is 50% off.  Don't forget the Platinum Club will take another 30% off that.

For under $200 you get great bang for the buck with  pro.

I agree with most of the other comments, but would suggest that you will probably get the hang of "correcting" poser content and shaders quickly.  The render engine is so much quicker and the lights so much better that you will likely be astounded, even if you don't use the modeling room at all.

I started with Poser 7 and Poser pro, but tried Carrara a while ago and have never gone back.  About the only reason I open Poser now is to open and re-save content if built in morphs don't work.  The re-save usually works fine in Carrara.  I assume the original had a PMD, and since I have pmd turned off in Poser the save incorporates the morphs internally in the model.  At least that's my conjecture.

Have fun!

Klebnor

Lotus 123 ~ S-Render ~ OS/2 WARP ~ IBM 8088 / 4.77 Mhz ~ Hercules Ultima graphics, Hitachi 10 MB HDD, 64K RAM, 12 in diagonal CRT Monitor (16 colors / 60 Hz refresh rate), 240 Watt PS, Dual 1.44 MB Floppies, 2 button mouse input device.  Beige horizontal case.  I don't display my unit.