Nikon D60 18-55 VR Kit review

When we first reviewed Nikon's D60 in What's New, Shopper 244, we found plenty to like, but at £443 the price was too high in the face of stiff competition.

Luckily, Nikon has lopped off almost £100. Unfortunately, the competition is also cheaper and better.

It's petite for a DSLR, and the curvy design looks smart and friendly. A button on the side of the lens has a self-timer icon, but it can also control drive mode, image quality and size, ISO or white balance. We would prefer dedicated buttons for each of these settings. Instead, an 'i' button allows settings to be browsed and adjusted onscreen using the navigation pad. It's a little cumbersome, though, and made worse by the fact that the same button is used for zooming in during instant review. We regularly found ourselves zooming in on the previous shot when we wanted to adjust a setting for the next one.

The ISO controls are confusing; it's possible to think you're adjusting the speed manually when the camera is actually set to Auto ISO elsewhere. We like the ability to configure the behaviour of the Auto ISO mode, though. An Active D-Lighting function surpassed similar features in Canon's and Sony's cameras to salvage details in shadows and highlights. Live view is absent, though, as are bracketing options for exposure and white balance. Furthermore, a video cable costs an additional £15.

The kit lens's optical stabilisation performed superbly in our tests, keeping most shots sharp at a 1/8s shutter speed. The choice of other lenses is limited, though, because the camera doesn't have an internal focus drive motor. Still, this is only a serious issue for those users who already own Nikon lenses.

Performance is up to scratch, with continuous shooting at 2.6fps and enough buffer capacity for five RAW images before falling to 1.1fps. Flash photography is a little slow, though, with an average of 1.2 seconds between shots. Enabling Active D-Lighting slashed continuous performance to 0.3fps. The autofocus was generally quick to lock on to subjects, although with just three points at which to measure focus, it sometimes failed to focus and shoot at all.

Image quality was among the best here. Colours were a touch warmer and more vibrant than those produced by the other cameras and, while details were average, that's fine in this company. Only Canon's 1000D gave better noise levels. Chromatic aberrations were a little worse than average, creating a little discoloration around high-contrast lines in the corners of photos, but the problem was rarely noticeable.

The D60 is a likable camera, but there's little here that isn't matched or bettered by the EOS 1000D. Active D-Lighting and faster continuous RAW shooting are the exceptions, but they're outweighed by the Canon's faster JPEG performance, crisper detail, live view mode and more logical, accessible controls.