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Speaking of the battery, the camera has a new long life rechargeable Lithium Ion battery, which Nikon claims offer approximately 500 shots before needing recharging. I certainly found this estimate to be reliable, and managed more shots, though high flash use would reduce this figure.

A host of in-camera editing facilities are included in the D60s menu system, including in-camera Raw processing. Chosen Raw images can be adjusted via the LCD screen and navigation pad, either colour, or some special effects, Active D-Lighting and so on can be added, with the resulting image saved as a new JPEG file, leaving your original intact. This image can then be printed direct from the camera for example or quickly emailed without the need to open a PC based Raw conversion application.

The D60 is small but perfectly formed, sitting comfortably in the hand and offering a pleasant and easy user experience. The buttons are minimal, leaving little for newbies to worry about, while more advanced controls are situated in the menus. For more experienced photographers who make a lot of changes as they shoot this can be quite annoying, and my preference is for lots of buttons on the outside of the camera. However this can be intimidating to the newcomer, so it makes sense to keep the camera as simple as possible.

One area of concern though is the AF performance; the lens based AF drive is slower than dual systems and at times the auto focus hunted rather slowly before locking onto the subject. This is particularly frustrating when shooting fast moving subjects such as sports, especially when combined with continuous shooting, when the AF can easily lose the subject, resulting in fewer successful sequential images. It may be an entry-level model, but other cameras, such as the Canon EOS 400D have more AF points and faster focussing.

The interface is fun to use and play with and nice and bright, though the LCD could be bigger, 2.5" is quite small by 2008 standards, but I suppose it keeps the camera small.

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