Nikon - D60 Digital Camera Review

I purchased the Nikon D60 the day before going on a trip to Hawaii.  Having owned several Nikon point and shoot cameras, I've grown accustom to the Nikon interface and wanted to continue to use it.  Being a techie, I would normally choose a higher end model, but since this was a last minute purchase, I wasn't willing to invest the amount of cash required to go with the D90 or D300.  Although reading more about the D90 on the flight to Hawaii, I started to have second thoughts about not purchasing the higher model. 

The buyer's remorse ended just a few minutes after shooting my first pictures on the D60.  The response from the D60 surprised me.  To allow for the most flexibility in editing, I saved my pictures in the Nikon Raw format.  I was further delighted later that night when I used the included Nikon Transfer software to transfer the pictures from the D60 to my laptop - Yes, I know I could have just plugged in the SD memory card into my laptop, but Nikon Transfer performed a simultaneous transfer of all the pictures to my internal hard drive AND my external USB drive which I use for archival backups.  Additionally, Nikon Transfer recognizes when it has already transferred a picture, so it doesn't fill the hard drive up with duplicate files.

After installing an updated driver that can be downloaded from adobe.com, I was able to directly open the Nikon raw files (NEF) in Photoshop CS4. In addition to the picture quality surpassing my expectations, the VR feature of the included Kit lens saved several shot that would have been ruined due to camera shake. 

Overall, I'd give the Nikon D60 4+ stars as a starter Digital SLR.