Nikon D60 (with 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VR Lenses)

Having come full circle from owning Canon Rebel manual 35mm film cameras in the 80's and 35mm automatic cameras in the 90's, then using a relatively good Sony Point and Shoot digital, I have to say the Nikon D60 has reinvigorated my desire to get "the picture" rather than just snap "a picture". I evaluated the Sony, Canon and Nikon models, and in the end the 60 provide the right blend of megapixels, comfort while shooting, available Vibration Reduction lens combinations, and at a price point under $1000 for body and 2 lens, 18-70 VR and 55-200 VR. I have found these VR lens do indeed add an extra level of forgiveness in your shooting.

In last 30 days, we have taken shots of Vegas sites, the Grand Canyon and of many sites along the Nile in Egypt, daylight and night, and the results are very good even for an amateur such as myself.

I've had the photograpy bug for a little over 40 years. I started out with a Nikkormat FT in high school. 15 years later I bought a Nikon FM. I still own both and they still work just fine. I've owned several point and shot cameras along the way also but have wanted to make the jump to a DSLR for quite some time. I had a wish list for quite a while that originally had the D40 but updated it to the D60 when it came out. My loving spouse took the list, did some research of her own and surprised me with a D60 kit containing the 18-55 & 55-200 VR DX zooms for my birthday in August. What a keeper I married :)

I have to say that I am absolutely happy and amazed with this great little digital beauty. It works great with my older Nikkor lenses and the 2 DX VR lenses are wonderful too.

The various "auto" modes work great when you want to let the camera do some, most or all of the work, OR need a quick shot and don't have the time to do more than compose. The manual mode allows complete control for those with the experience or beginners who want to learn by experimentation.

The small size might be a problem for a large-handed individual, but it fits my medium sized paws to a T. The 10.2 megapixels, large ISO range, 3 metering methods, multiple shooting modes and huge range of Nikon accessories and Nikkor lenses make this a great platform for the beginning dslr user as well as the more experienced. And the price at Amazon with both DX VR lenses is a great deal.

One more thing. The manual from Nikon is thorough, but not well organized or illustrated. Because of that, I recommend that you also buy the "Nikon D60 (Focal Digital Camera Guides)" by Corey Hilz. It's far better organized and illustrated, has a great quick start section that will get you up and photographing in just a few minutes and has great tips and techniques from Corey, who is a great photo pro and shows how to use all of the great features this camera has. Well worth the current $13.57 price tag on Amazon and can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240810686

Wow! This camera and lense package delivers! No, I do not work for Nikon or any marketing firm, but I am blown away by how much easier it is for this amateur to get reasonably clear pictures from farther away. Parents, you know what I mean--nothing disappoints like being on the sidelines of a soccer or football game, and trying to use that pocket camera to capture the action. It can't, but the D60 will make you feel like a pro when you look at your results. The 10 megapixles gives you lots of room to crop. You do not need a degree in digital photography to make it work, but I could use some tips on photo editing/finishing . . .

Definitely get the 2 lense package. The VR does make a difference and do not forget to get your 50mm UV (or circular polarized) filter. At least now when you are sitting in the back row at graduation, you have a chance at getting some pics you want to keep.

For the more technical readers out there, let me add that turning off autofocus is a must if you want to take quick action shots.

Also, spend a couple of bucks extra and get an quick 8 Gig mem card.

My first day out I took over 400 picures, toasted my battery, but had plenty of room on the card.

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I recently replaced my old Olympus film SLR with the D60. I have liked my digital Nikon pocket cameras because they are small and easy to use, and my pictures always had better quality than those taken with other similarly-priced brands. However, the pocket cameras' shutter lags really annoyed me and I really missed the quality that glass optics give to landscapes.

So far, I am delighted with the D60. I have taken several short photo classes and experimented with the camera's settings. I am really impressed with the photo quality and ease of use. The D60 is easier to use than my film SLR because the screen reminds me of my settings and offers help. I can see what options I chose for each picture on-screen. The camera lures me into trying manual settings. I am very happy with the quality of the photos I have printed.

I've had the D60 for about a week now, and I bought this for my fiancee who's been wanting to get into photography as well. Being an E-510 user, I was impatient to see what sort of differences I can see and my findings were mixed.

For starters, the D60 isn't very ground-breaking and no one even from a D40 might think about upgrading, other than resolution and a few features, everything remains the same. But to its credit, the dust reduction, VR kit lens and Active D-Lighting are very useful features.

Out of the camera, images are very contrasty and punchy, and I often found them over-saturated leading to unreal skin tones and excessive reds and yellows, this definitely needs adjusting (in my opinion). The Olympus in comparison maintained much more "real" colors. Also auto WB in incandescent lighting lead to excessive yellow masks which didn't seem to be the case on my Olympus.

With Active D-Lighting on, the camera takes a good 5-6seconds to show an image preview after an exposure, this can be very annoying. Also shadow areas boosted with D-lighting seemed noisy even at ISO 100, so I'd definitely use this feature only when required.

The D60 has very good metering although sometimes it tends to over-expose. The flash is very nice and uses TTL metering for deciding flash strength. This is pretty accurate.

The one thing I was a little surprised about was the absence of live-view, which even Canon has now on the 450D, not sure why this was left out and would have made an excellent addition to the feature-set.

Overall this is a nice camera for beginners and semi-professionals, but definitely needs to be tweaked before use.

Pros:
- Excellent build quality
- Very nice menus and software
- Great images out of camera (very saturated and contrasty)
- Active D-Lighting
- Vibration Reduction

Cons
- No Live View.
- Colors over-saturated and needs to be toned down.
- VR feature is in lens as opposed to in-body, making lenses more expensive.