LET'S GET DIGITAL! (Canon EOS D60)

Member Name: jellybean11

Product:	Canon EOS D60
Date:	05/12/04 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: image quality, ease of use, lightweight, good battery life

Disadvantages: opening battery compartment loses images, slow RAW conversion, image magnification at one level only

The Canon EOS D60 has been around for about two years now and was an improvement on an earlier model. I’ve owned it now for about a year and during that time myself and my family have had much usage and enjoyment from the camera. Having owned the camera for some time now I feel I am able to comment on all aspects of the camera and hopefully identify any disadvantages especially having a husband who works with cameras and therefore knows a lot about them. Canon are one of the leading manufacturers of relatively low-cost digital cameras with new models being brought out every year each with a new array of features, although there are numerous alternatives to this camera and it won’t suit every user I have found it to be extremely good in the time that I have used it.

>>>DESIGN<<<

The camera has a metal chassis with a black plastic outer case. Holding the camera it feels robust and sturdy, despite not having a solid metal body. From my experience of using it I’ve found it to be a pretty hard-wearing camera, it’s taken a few knocks and yet still appears undamaged and operates perfectly. It also performs perfectly well in a variety of climates so if you do a lot of travelling this camera is a good choice. We’ve used it in hot, dusty Africa as well as the humid rainforests of Costa Rica and it’s never had any problems.

The camera isn’t targeted at a professional market and is sold purely as a consumer camera. Often with regular consumer cameras users find the body of the camera isn’t particularly sturdy and the camera can be damaged or broken if not looked after and used very carefully, but this camera has been designed with practicality and comfort in mind so it seems. The layout of the camera is easy to get used to and the viewfinder has soft rubber cushioning ensuring comfort is achieved.

Without the battery grip attached, the camera is relatively compact for a digital SLR camera and most users will probably use the camera without the battery grip. If you do chose to add the battery grip your grip of the camera changes but this is designed to make it more comfortable to hold, while also providing an additional battery slot to allow users to run two batteries together, and a control and shutter release. I prefer not to use the battery grip as I find it comfortable to use the camera without it and I don’t have any real need for it.

The viewfinder has a rubber eye piece attachment, although many people will prefer to use the focussing screen as it is easier when you are manually focussing. The LCD screen is 1.8” and is 114,000 pixels, this is fairly standard for this type of camera and produces excellent images under most circumstances. There is also a protective screen covering it again making this a very consumer-friendly camera and preventing damage. The screen has a good level of brightness and display gamma helps to prevent images looking underexposed and makes shadow detail more visible. Although the screen is smaller than on some digital cameras it is about average for this type of camera and is perfectly adequate for most users. The only downside to this aspect of the camera is the fact that although the screen has a protective cover it doesn’t have an anti-reflective coating which means that in very brightly lit conditions (think midday in Africa) the screen is a little difficult to view and you have to angle it so the sun isn’t shining directly onto it. Otherwise I have absolutely no complaints.

On top of the camera there is another small LCD screen, this time it displays information such as image size and quality, exposure, contrast balance, battery consumption etc. This is different to some cameras which just have the one LCD screen at the back for both images and information to be displayed. Information is simple to find and you can easily change your settings.

>>>OPERATION AND CONTROLS<<<

The whole design of the camera makes for easy operation; the buttons are clearly labelled for all of the controls and the user manual is excellent. You quickly learn all the basic controls of the camera and most people who’ve used a camera before will find the operation easy to master.

On the top of the camera on the left hand side there is an exposure mode dial. There are a range of options varying from fully automatic through to fully manual with various semiautomatic options also available. If you aren’t familiar with different exposure types I’d advise you read the user manual at some point to maximise your photographic options as Canon really are rather good at describing the exposure modes. The ‘basic zone’ modes available are as follows:

• Fully automatic picture taking: this aims to leave nothing for the photographer to do but compose the shot and press the shutter button, no focussing is needed on your part at all.
• Portrait Mode: this blurs the background to make the subject stand out, it can be useful for some shots but not if you want to have both the subject and background in focus.
• Landscape mode: for any landscape shot
• Close-up mode: fairly self-explanatory, it takes objects close up such as flowers.
• Sports mode: for fast moving objects, such as jumping horses, racing cars.
• Night Portrait mode: this mode uses flash to illuminate the subject in very dark conditions and has a slow shutter speed to expose the background.

For more advanced photographers there is also what Canon call the ‘creative zone’. Most users probably won’t understand these modes without consulting the manual but as my husband is a bit of an enthusiast he makes full use of these additional options.

• Program AE: basically this is similar to Full Auto mode in the ‘basic zone’ a general purpose mode.
• Shutter-Priority AE
• Aperture-Priority AE
• Manual Exposure
• Automatic Depth-of-Field AE: a very useful mode, all the subjects from those close to the camera, to those far away, will be clearly in focus.

On the top of the camera you will also find the shutter release button as you would hope!
On the back of the camera next to the LCD screen on the left are three buttons; metering / flash compensation, drive mode and AF mode / white balance. You simply press these settings buttons once, move the dial to select your chosen option and then half-press the shutter release button to return to your shooting mode.
The only thing I think which makes the operation a little confusing is the fact that there are two switches labelled on/off. Obviously only one of these is used to turn the camera on or off and it is the switch on top of the camera. The other switch which is labelled on/off is situated at the back of the camera on the right just above the quick control dial is a lock for the dial itself, therefore on/off refers to whether the lock is applied or not. Personally I think it would have been a lot simpler if they had put ‘Lock’ above this switch to avoid any confusion but I suppose once you know which switch is which it doesn’t cause any problems. The large quick control dial ensures easy and fumble-free control of options and is located to the right of the LCD display screen.

The other thing that I think Canon should have improved is that when you open the battery compartment you lose any buffered images because it causes the camera to shut down. Although it does make this clear in the manual, I worry that some people won’t read this at first and could lose precious images. However once you have made this mistake once you certainly won’t do it again.

The play back on the camera is good, the user can quickly change between images using the dial; you can also zoom in on images or use the information button to find out when the image was taken and its size. You can also view an index of images in the form of small thumbnails.
Overall I’ve found the operation of the camera very easy and the controls are easily learnt. My family also find the camera easy to use and if you want to learn about the more advanced options that the camera has to offer you can consult the user manual which gives very clear accurate descriptions of the options available.

>>> BATTERY LIFE, CONNECTIONS AND IMAGE QUALITY<<<

The camera is powered by a BP-511 battery, there is an option if you attach the battery grip to run using two batteries at the same time but this isn’t something I ever use. I’ve found battery life to be very good. Of course many camera users long for the day when the battery won’t need to be recharged but until then we’ll just have to carry on recharging as necessary. Obviously battery life depends on how much you use the LCD screens as these consume the most battery power. I usually just use the screen briefly after I’ve taken a photo rather than frequently looking through all my images and I’ve always found that even after the 1GB IBM drive is full the battery is still going strong so that’s an impressive performance.

The camera has a USB connection which is adequate but does mean that with the large file sizes of some images transmitting to a computer can take some time. Some cameras now have a Firewire interface to speed things up but sadly this camera doesn’t have one.

All I can say about image quality is that it is excellent. I’ve had my images made into prints on many occasions each time achieving an excellent result. Once transmitted onto a computer the images can be viewed at a larger scale and even then the result is very impressive.

>>>FEATURES<<<

The main features are:
• 6.3 megapixel CMOS (Aspect ratio 2:3)
• Focal length conversion of 1.6x
• 3-point Autofocus
• ISO range: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000
• 1.8in TFT monitor (114,000 pixels)
• 7 white balance settings, 1 custom
• 35-zone metering
• Auto pop-up built-in E-TTL flash.
• USB interface
• Approximately 3fps for maximum of 8 shots.
• 8 shooting menus, 4 playback menus, 12 setup menus
• Dimensions: 149.5mm x 106.5mm x 75mm
• 780g in weight

>>>CONCLUSION<<<

This camera certainly fulfilled our expectations and goes beyond what many consumer cameras have to offer. In all respects I think this is an excellent camera and I can’t think of any faults other than the few niggles that I’ve pointed out. This was an upgrade on a previous model and although I cannot comment on how much better it is than the previous design I can say that it is a very high performer that I hope will continue to give us excellent results for a long time to come.

To summarise what I think of the camera here are what I consider to be the pros and cons.

Pros:

• Excellent resolution and colour
• Quiet during operation
• Buffering means you can take the next shot almost straightaway
• Filter behind the lens designed to reduce the problem of dust
• Full Canon EF lens compatible
• Easy to operate
• Good combination automatic and manual exposure controls
• Illuminated LCD
• Excellent battery life (batteries are also quite small)
• Lightweight

Cons:

• Opening the battery compartment door shuts camera down, loses any buffered images
• Cannot manually tweak white balance
• Image playback magnification only at one level
• Slow RAW conversion, it usually takes about 15-25 seconds to load each image onto our computer

Overall my whole family have found this to be an excellent camera and it comes highly recommended.

Summary: