The Nikon D60 is a great camera for those who want to upgrade from a basic point-and-shoot camera to a DSLR. The camera is incredibly easy to use and, for those who aren’t quite ready to shoot in manual mode or take control of the exposure settings, the Nikon D60 takes brilliant pictures on auto, even in “stressful” conditions.
The Nikon D60 is compact and fairly light-weight. In fact, I believe the D60 is one of Nikon’s lightest and slightest digital SLR cameras. The camera can handle temperatures from 0-40˚C (for my American friends, that’s 32-104˚F), making it quite adaptable to most of our environments. The Nikon D60 is comfortable to hold and the controls are easily accessible.
The 2.5 inch LCD monitor has brightness adjustment and is equipped with an automatic defeat via Eye Sensor. What does that mean? When you put your eye up to the viewfinder, the camera’s LCD monitor will automatically turn off, resulting in longer battery life. When you move away from the viewfinder, the LCD monitor will automatically turn on again. Speaking of battery life, though I didn’t take note of how many photos I took on a single charge of the battery, I can say that the battery life seemed to last a heck of a long time before needing a recharge.
The D60 has an eye-level penta-Dach mirror single-lens reflex viewfinder, with 95 % frame coverage (both horizontal and vertical). I’ll rewind here and go back to my mention of the “penta-Dach mirror”, after all, there’s no point in mentioning something that I’m sure a lot of people have no idea what it means. Though it may sound like a strange 5-sided dinosaur, it’s actually a mirror positioned inside the top of the viewfinder chamber. Some cameras use a prism and others a mirror inside their viewfinders. Oh, and “dach” is German for “roof”.
Dust Reduction System
The Nikon D60 uses a new technology called Airflow Control System. The camera has small ducts near the base of the camera, air flows from within the mirror box and these ducts will remove any dust particles that are on the image sensor.
In addition to the Airflow Control System, the D60 has an Image Sensor Cleaning feature. This function uses vibrations to eliminate sensor dust. Though you can change the settings, by default, the camera triggers this feature every time the D60 is turned on or off. The process only takes a couple of seconds (if that) and is completely soundless. In fact, the only indication that the feature is working is a visual graphic displayed on the LCD monitor.
In-Camera Retouching
The Retouch Menu offers a variety of photo editing features, such as cropping, red-eye correction, and contrast and saturation adjustments. Personally, I find these features completely useless simply because I prefer to edit my photos on my computer with photo editing software (I’m a fan of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2). With that said, the D60’s Retouch Menu does offer a few cool features:
In the Filter Effect menu, there’s an option called the Cross Screen effect. This option creates star-like lines within brightly lit areas of a photo. Other Filter Effects within the Retouch Menu include red, green and blue intensifiers, skylight, warm filter and color balance.
The Nikon D60’s Retouch Menu also has a new feature called Stop-motion. This option allows you to convert your photos into a mini-movie (a stop-motion animation). Up to 100 photos can be used.
Active D-Lighting
The new Active D-Lighting feature automatically adjusts photos taken in low-light situations, optimising images that contain harsh shadows and highlights. This feature is turned off by default and I chose to leave it like that because, as like the in-camera retouching, I prefer to use photo editing software to enhance my images; to each his own.
Continue on to page 2 of this review to discover:
- Additional features
- How user friendly the Nikon D60 is
- Sample images taken with the Nikon D60
- What price-value rating this DSLR camera receives and why