The D60 arrives in the wake of the D3 and D300 and slots into the range above the D40 (which stays on as part of the Nikon crew) and below the D80 replacing the D40x. And the similarities to that camera are obvious as soon as you pick the thing up.
The D60 has a very compact and lightweight body with a nicely sculpted handgrip on the right into the base of which the rechargeable battery slots. A port on the side houses the SD/SDHC external storage card. The small top plate lacks a data LCD but has a large mode dial with its key shooting modes. These include the usual P, A, S and M modes along with a seven subject programs that include child, portrait and landscape modes to name a few. There�s a full auto setting too.
A control wheel on the rear can be used to select various settings in the mode the camera is set to and on the front, the shutter release and on/off switch perch on the leading edge of the hand grip. Just behind sit the exposure compensation and D-Lighting buttons.
A small pop-up flash provides a modicum of lighting having a guide number (GN) of 12 at ISO 100. In terms of sensitivity, the D60 has a good range from ISO 100 to 1600; there is a boosted �Hi� mode too, enough to provide plenty of flexibility in most lighting conditions without reverting to flash all the time.
Image noise can be a problem at higher ISOs, at ISO 800 and above sadly the same is true here even with noise reduction on and despite Nikon�s EXPEED engine strutting its stuff, a processor that works so well on the D3 and D300, the application here is less successful in terms of noise control.
However, it does optimise the image quality particularly in terms of white balance and colour and provides a set of tools, such as vivid, more vivid and the like, to tweak the look of images. Other parameters in the Optimise Image controls allow you to customise sharpening, tone, colour profile (Adobe or sRGB for example), hue, and saturation.
In terms of image size and quality you can shoot JPEGs (basic, normal and fine) and RAW + (basic) JPEG as well, so you get a reasonable range to play with. On a 1GB SDHC card in basic I could shoot up to 451 images while in RAW that drops to 73 or you can get around 65 RAW + JPEGs.
Doug Harman
more : pocket-lint
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