A weekend at the A1GP with the Nikon D60 DSLR
A short review by Dallas Dahms
When the D60 was announced many, including myself, asked why Nikon would put yet another entry-level camera into the market so soon after the introduction of the D40X (which came hot on the heels of the D40), especially since there is very little difference between the D60 and its pre-decessors. There's only one logical answer to that question: have cow, will milk.
Those of us schooled in the practise of marketing know that manufacturers of electronic goods like cameras are hooking into the "must-have-the-latest-features" market that cellphone manufacturers have been milking since the early 90's. We consumers can rest assured that as long as we continue to lust after the latest models, companies like Nikon are going to keep putting them into the market with minor changes. With the D60 Nikon have taken the D40X and added a few new features, such as Active D-Lighting, on-board photo editing and a dust reduction vacuum cleaner. Other than that there's very little difference to the D40X.
But that's not the purpose of this review, nor is it why you have decided to come here, so rather let me discuss the merits and what I perceive as short-comings of this "new" piece of kit.
Basis of this review
Before I get into it I would just like to point out that first and foremost I am a photographer, not a scientist or pixel-measurer. When I review equipment I assess the item for what it is and whether it delivers what I am expecting of it. I'm not going to look at test charts or do any kind of bench testing against other cameras. I'm going to see if I can use the camera to produce decent images in different shooting situations and then tell you if I think the camera has delivered an acceptable result (to me).
Which Market?
So who exactly is going to buy this really tiny digital SLR that will only auto focus with AF-S style Nikkor lenses? My guess is it will slot quite nicely into the family market - people who are looking for a high quality camera that will give them a fair amount of flexibility in terms of the types of pictures they will be able to take. They're probably looking for something small enough to be carried unobtrusively, but far more capable than the current crop of P&S style cameras.
And those who take their photography a little more seriously but haven't the budget for the D80 or D300? Will they be satisfied with the D60? Will it perform in situations where the average P&S simply won't cut it? My feeling is yes, it certainly will, with some reservations. Provided you aren't expecting blindingly fast AF and FPS speeds, I think this camera will serve many an amateur or person starting out in photography quite well. It has a broad feature set and seems fairly capable of producing decent photographic output.
Using the D60
This is a tiny camera! I have medium sized hands and when I lift it up it feels small, but at the same time I am quite comfortable with it in my hands. I can reach all the required buttons easily enough and after only 5 minutes with it I was able to figure out most of the functions that I would need in any given shooting situation.
Okay, it helps that I've been doing serious photography since early 2000 and I know my f-stop from my ISO's, but what about the person who hasn't got a clue about photography? Is this a good tool to learn on? A beginner will probably feel a little intimidated at first, but there are the pre-set modes with little icons for things like portraits and night shots that they can cut their teeth on before jumping into things like Aperture and Shutter Priority and all the peripheral knowledge that is required to understand how to use them properly.
Menus
If you can drive a cell phone, you shouldn't have any problems driving this Nikon. The menu system is intuitive and once the beginner has discovered what various photographic terms mean, they should be able to grow nicely into the D60. A nice feature is that you can create your own "custom menu", putting only the items you use most often into it. This will simplify things tremendously for most users short on camera know-how.
The Screen
The LCD screen is very impressive on the D60. Equally impressive is the finder brightness. Over the weekend I had the camera, there were situations where I was battling to see high contrast detail in my D2H pentaprism finder, whereas the D60's penta-mirror finder really shone brightly. There's no Live View, nor is there a plastic clip-on screen protector for the D60, probably because of the tiny sensors just above the screen that detect when you are looking through the finder and accordingly switch off the rear monitor.
Because there is no top LCD panel to tell you what your settings on the camera are, you have to make use of the rear LCD to set things like metering modes, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. At first I thought that this would slow me down some, but it's surprisingly easy to change settings without having to find them in the menu. When the camera is switched on there is a "dashboard" like screen that appears on the LCD. It has icons for most of the settings I just mentioned and as with the D40 series, you simply activate the dashboard using one of the buttons and then navigate to the item you want to adjust using the multi-selector switch and command dial. In fact I kind of like the interface. Something else I like is that you can change the colour scheme of the menus, including the background of the dashboard to suit your needs.
Flash
The built-in flash on the D60 is pretty good in Auto program mode. It can be set to fire in manual mode too, which means that you can use the camera in a small home studio. I do this quite often with my D70 by turning the flash power right down to its lowest setting and then using it to trigger my SB-800 in SU-4 manual mode. Seems kind of a silly thing to do when iTTL works so well, even wirelessly, but I like to have full control of the lighting in that situation, so if I ever buy a D60 it's good to know that it will be able to work the same as my D70.
Image using D60 pop-up flash
The D60 doesn't offer the same 1/500sec flash synch as the D70, you'll have to make do with 1/200sec (that is if you are not the "family market" member I described earlier who probably wouldn't even bother trying to look up what a flash synch speed is!). Suffice to say that by using the pop-up flash in Auto mode you will get very good exposures that don't have the typically blown look that most flash photography from lesser brands have. Like most other cameras in this market the flash will pop-up automatically if the camera detects that there is not enough light to make a decent exposure when you are using any of the pre-set modes.
Sensor Cleaning
When you switch on the D60 the screen tells you that it is busy cleaning the sensor. It takes about a second or two. It also does this when you shut the camera down. Fortunately this is a customisable option. You can set it up to clean only at start-up or shut down, or only when you specify it via the menu. Good thing that option, otherwise there'd be a million questions on why Nikon made a camera with a slower start-up time than some P&S's!
Active D-Lighting
This feature is a bit confusing to me. Apparently it is supposed to increase the dynamic range of the camera by rescuing highlights and drawing more detail from shadows, but when I shot with it switched on I didn't really see too much of a difference, even in some really high contrast situations. I suppose this might be because I was shooting in JPG mode.
High ISO Performance
When the D3/300 came out everyone was blown away with the fact that Nikon had now provided a very good in-camera noise reduction algorithm. In fact it was so good that people were begining to shoot at previously unheard of ISO values and they were getting decent images. It would be naive to believe that such advanced technology would trickle down to the entry level Nikons, but I can say that shooting at 1600 with the D60 does provide a decent enough image. It's actually not bad at all - I would have no hesitation in shooting 1600 with this camera in low light, the image below is an example. Of course you must switch on the noise reduction option in the menu otherwise you will be faced with something a lot noisier.
A1GP Press Conference: Nikon D60 with 16-85mm VR at 1600 ISO & Auto WB
Dynamic Range Performance
This is a difficult aspect to assess when you are shooting in JPG mode. However, considering the intended market, JPG's are probably what most users of this camera are going to be using, so dynamic range needs to be up there. I found that it was a bit lacklustre, but because I am not going to make a scientific judgement of how it performs, you can judge for yourself by looking at the image below. This was taken in the very harsh African sunlight, shooting a subject with a lot of black in the centre of the frame. The asphalt, whilst over-exposed, has retained some detail that could possibly be recovered in Photoshop. Some creasing detail in the models outfit is still visible at a 100% crop. This image is straight out of the camera without any post processing at all. I did notice that the camera didn't respond well to vibrant reds in JPG mode at all.
Note the red pants of the men in the background - hmmm...
Lens Options
This is where the camera falls down some. If you want such luxuries as TTL metering and auto focus you will only be able to use Nikon's AF-S (Silent Wave Motor) range of lenses. Fair enough, there seem to be many more of these available these days, so the "family" photographer probably wouldn't be short on options. However, Nikon's greatest strength has always been its backwards compatibility with older lenses, so its disconcerting for long-time users of the brand to discover that the classic old Nikkors can't be used properly with the D60. You can still use the older AF lenses and get metering, but you have to focus manually. I don't recommend this because it's frustrating to focus manually with them using only the built-in rangefinder as a guide. Something else worth mentioning about this is that you will only get the rangefinder green dot on lenses with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or higher (no mirror lenses).
The funny thing about the D60 is that you can mount more Nikkor lenses on it than you can on any other current production, higher end body, including the D3. Why? Simply because there is no aperture coupling ring to get in the way of a non-AI lens when you mount it. This means that while you can't meter or auto focus with a non-AI lens on the D60, you can still mount one and using manual mode on the camera together with a hand held meter you will be able to obtain an image. Just how much bother that will cause an enthusiast remains to be seen. Cameras like these are not really intended to be used with non-AI lenses.
In Camera Re-touching
I didn't get to try this out because of time restraints, but it seems that you can get the camera to remove red-eye, apply a crop and do some other nifty tricks that are bound to help you save time in front of the computer. I suppose if you are away on holiday (sans computer) and you want to get some prints done at the local photo lab, or just save your images to a portable storage device, this is nice to have.
My Opinion?
I think that if you are on a budget and are looking for an affordable DSLR that can deliver pictures in difficult situations, you could do a lot worse than the Nikon D60. It has quite a bit going for it. I'd like to have had the use of it for a longer period of time, but given the resurgence in popularity that Nikon are currently experiencing, availability of demo models is in short supply!
In conclusion I think that it's a good camera for an amateur to consider, but if you are looking to explore Nikon's plethora of non-AF-S auto focus lenses you'd be better off with a model like the D80 which can at least meter and auto focus with all factory produced CPU Nikkors. I think its good but it falls short of the kind of greatness we saw from Nikon when the D70 came out (still one of my preferred cameras despite its age).
Tell us what you think of the Nikon D60:
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Nikon D60 review