Canon EOS D60 Review

Overall Rating

Quality, ease of use, versatility, reliability, commercial standard photos

some autofocus modes can be slow

Well, they said be specific so here goes . . try not to doze off. I have owned a D30 for nearly 18 months and decided to go fully digital with the onset of our new studio so we have full backup and interchangeabitlity of lenses. We use the D30 and the new D60 for commercial work and that alone should shout volumes about their ability, albeit just in our opinion. The details merely confirm what you may suspect - we love them both ! Here's an example - for the average magazine or brochure layout, it will be printed at about a real world 300dpi. Although the reprographic (print) film that it comes from can be upwards of 3000 dpi, what it then goes on to print is much much less fine. Therefore, for all intents & purposes, what you see is very rarely more than that level of detail and our D60 and even the D30 have always exceeded that that can be printed in an A4/A3 page in a brochure or a tabloid layout in newsprint. So theres proof of suitablitiy from a commercial angle. The quality of your camera is second only in importance to the lenses - and they have the final say in picture performance. We use L series lenses from Canon with the exception of the 50mm F1.4 which is a cracker. The 16-35, 28-70 & 70-200 are all F2.8 'L' series - which we think stands for Luvverly, because they are just that. Next, you have to compare this to the alternatives . . and film is the only alternartive. By it's nature it has to go through at least 3 analogue conversions before reaching the same page - the film processing - the film print - the scan - with your digital camera it's file to plate or print film and you halve the chance of cock-ups and degradation because of this. Using the D60 is a pleasure and the results are instantly available through the small but effective screen on the rear. It is an improvement on the D30 but both are good in any case. The metering and colour balance are very impressive and accurate. The results ? well, they easily exceed every other 'ordinary' 35mm film camera we have ever used on both counts - despite not wanting to believe that at first. We are now total converts ! Take your pix, import them into Photoshop (natch), and you can confidently send to press a photo with a level of confidence that you rarely enjoyed in the analogue world. For studio output we use an A4 dye-sub P-400 from Olympus and large format HP Designjets. We have blown up these prints to 8' x 4' and you would be amazed at the details & quality. Buy a D30 if the budget is tight, and a D60 if it's not. I did both and don't regret a penny. Right at the top of the Must Have list. Overall rating is only 9 stars because it would be short sighted to leave no room for marking the D90 ? ? ? next year . . .

Members' Comments onAde.'s Review

• Darth Andy. on 12th Dec 2002

  I couldn't agree more, but as for upgrading my D30, I'm saving for the D1s (11.1 Million Pixels!)

• Rachel_Burke. on 29th Jan 2003

  I have just been advised that there are no (and I do mean "no") Canon D60's available in Australia. Having spoken to a number of dealers and also Canon Australia, it appears the D60 has been discontinued and there is _a lot_ of speculation that a "D90" will be released within the next 3 months. Has anyone heard whether this is in fact true (more than spectulation) and if so, the likely release date in Australia? Also, I presume that if they've withdrawn the D60 from sale it must mean that the D90 is going to be comparable or the same price?