Nikon D60 Review

1991 saw the creation of the Kodak DCS 100 which was the first ever Digital SLR camera released. This changed the way pictures were taken forever with tried and trusted 35mm cameras doomed to extinction. The original Kodak model cost around $20,000 and delivered poor quality pictures. It seemed that the Digital SLR revolution was nothing more than a fad. However, subsequent cameras were greatly improved with the Nikon D60 the latest model to impress.

Overview

The Nikon D60 has a 2.5 inch LCD screen and the new Airflow Control system. It has 10.2 megapixels and an Eye Sensor which ensures the LCD is switched off the moment you put your eye on the viewfinder piece. A neat feature of the D60 is its ability to match the angle at which the camera is shooting. For example, if you are shooting with the camera at an angle of 60 degrees, the LCD screen also turns to 60 degrees ensuring a clean shot.

The usual bunch of shooting modes are available including manual, shutter priority, aperture priority and auto. Adjustments that can be made in-camera include stop-motion movie, trimming, filter effects and quick retouch.

Design

By DSLR standards, the D60 is small and light. It is an upgrade of the D40x but does not differ greatly in the design department. This camera is not designed for professionals but it is also not built with amateurs in mind. If you are looking to step your photography up a notch then the D60 is a good choice.

The D60 is made from a metal alloy frame and has a polycarbonate outer shell. It looks like a normal camera but is far more durable than one might think. It can take something of a pounding before its picture quality is affected. It also has seals against dust and poor weather and is strong enough to use in the rain.

Menu And Display

The D60 resembles the D40x so much that it could justifiably be referred to as D40x mark 2. The handgrip is solid and provides a good, comfortable grip unlike the Canon Rebel cameras which are guilty of having narrow grips.

This camera is fairly easy to use with no unusual placements for its controls. The power button and shutter switch are located on the right hand side with the Exposure Compensation button placed behind the shutter release. This button can be used to make adjustments to exposure in double quick time by rotating the command dial.

The D60 is a camera that is designed for all photographers. This is very apparent by the way in which the controls are placed. There are no controls placed where they shouldn’t be and even amateur photographers will quickly figure out how to use the D60. The screen is 230,000 dot LCD and shows more than 99% of the image frame. The viewfinder is extremely bright and large and provides coverage of 95% of the image frame.

Performance

The fact that it is remarkably similar to the D40x is both good and bad news for the D60. It gives good quality performance and is quick but there is nothing special about it. When you consider how quickly the world of technology produces innovations, there is every chance that the D60 could find itself lagging behind very quickly.

Shutter lag varies between 0.08 and 0.25 seconds depending on whether you are pre-focusing. Its continuous shooting capability comes in at approximately 3fps while a single shot of a JPEG picture will take almost a second, reasonably slow for a DSLR.

The D60’s auto focus is consistent and provides good results in dull light. One major problem it has however is the fact that it only offers three different auto focus points while rival cameras have 11. The D60 uses the standard Nikon battery with a fully charged version able to take up to 500 pictures. It comes equipped with a charger that takes about an hour and a half to fully juice up your camera.

Quality Of Images

For best results, take pictures at an ISO between 100 and 200. It is hard to complain about the results the default settings produce. A slight problem with default pictures is that they produce images which are slightly over saturated in terms of color though this can be manually changed.

When the camera is used at the 100 and 200 ISO settings, the noise level is fairly minimal. As expected, this level increases with the ISO though pictures from 400 right through to 800 did not produce excess noise. At ISO 1600, images did start to show up soft edges in the picture instead of fine details and the color was a bit off.

Overall

This is a pretty good effort from Nikon with regards to their first entry-level DSLR but they will need to improve on their next outing because their rivals have had a head start. It is very easy to use for beginners and is an ideal introduction into the world of digital photography. The Nikon D60 is also reasonably priced and can be purchased for a few hundred dollars.