Advise for beginner looking at the D60

[domromer]

I think you'd be better served getting a used D80.

 

[Mav]

Well I'm the opposite of sabbath. I have a D40 and D80 and just got tired of having some lenses work on the D80, but not on the D40. I love my D40. It's so lightweight and fits in the tiniest of camera bags, but I didn't have any truly nice glass to put on it. So I got an AF-S 17-55DX f/2.8 to throw on it, specifically thinking of the D40. It probably seems about as odd or wrong to put a $1200 pro mid-zoom on a D40 as it seems odd for those equipment hounds that sabbath was mentioning would think it odd to leave a D300 and pro lenses at home in favor of a D40 and $100 18-55.

For me the D40 and 17-55 is about the perfect combo. It still fits in my smallest, lightest, and most portable camera bag which is great. I tried the D80 & 17-55 and it wouldn't fit and needed my next bigger bag which is a lot bigger, and a lot less convenient. And believe it or not, the handling of the D40 with the 17-55 is actually pretty good too. And if the light is marginal, I can still shoot at 55mm since it's an f/2.8 vs an 18-55 which is f/5.6 and you need to stay at the wide end, or get a VR lens. Image quality is fantastic too! Photos come straight off the camera looking perfect. The sharpness, color, and contrast of the pro lens is all there. As long as you get the exposure right, you don't even need to post-process or do any sharpening like you'd have to with the 18-55 in a lot of cases. That saves a ton of time, which is something I'm usually pretty short of also.

As of now I'm consciously avoiding anymore non AF-S lenses. Clearly that's the direction Nikon is headed in, they're coming out with more and more AF-S lenses including primes at all price ranges, and the pokey slow focusing and hunting I've experienced on a lot of the screw drive lenses isn't exactly something I've enjoyed. The more expensive AF-S lenses are often giving you a lot more than just AF-S for the higher price as well. Look at the 70-300VR lens vs the older ED or G versions, for example. Image quality is amazing, VR lets you shoot under far more conditions, and then it has quick focusing AF-S on top of that. The new AF-S 60mm f/2.8 micro is apparently considered one of the best Nikon micro/macro lenses too, much better than the older 55/60 micros in terms of image quality. Generally, you get what you pay for. So it's not like you're paying a ton more money for a lens just for AF-S and nothing else.

 

[Mav]

The D60 is really a bit of a "whee look at me" camera. It has the same body as the D40 and D40x (so the same lens limitations), but has 10 megapixels, vibration reduction, sensor cleaning, and active D-lighting (it has a similar effect to HDR, but not as pronounced).

Basically, they're all gimmicks. Sure, sensor cleaning and VR is a plus, but so long as you have a tripod and a blower, you'll be fine. D-lighting is avaliable on the other cameras (just not AS you take the photo), and come on... stop motion movies???

The D60's VR is built into the 18-55VR lens that it's shipping with and not the body itself. And the active D-lighting on the newer bodies is a lot different than what's in the older bodies like the D40 and D80. On the fly highlight optimization is really important and will save you a ton of time later when post-processing if it just gets it right the first time. I'd seriously consider a D60 if it had the better D300 sensor (it's still using the noisier D80/D200 sensor), but we'll probably have to wait for the D90 for that.

 

[sabbath999]

The D60's VR is built into the 18-55VR lens that it's shipping with and not the body itself. And the active D-lighting on the newer bodies is a lot different than what's in the older bodies like the D40 and D80. On the fly highlight optimization is really important and will save you a ton of time later when post-processing if it just gets it right the first time. I'd seriously consider a D60 if it had the better D300 sensor (it's still using the noisier D80/D200 sensor), but we'll probably have to wait for the D90 for that.

Keeping in mind, of course, that Active D-Lighting only works when shooting RAW only if you do your conversions in Capture NX... Adobe can't read the appended RAW data... obviously, it works in JPEG no matter what PP you do to it.