Avoid Nikon Consumer Cameras. Review on Nikon F60

Yeah - and I mean it - Do not buy a Nikon consumer level SLR or any of their point and shoot's.

I own not this exact model, but an earlier model Nikon 6006. An acquaintance I met at a party (with an N60) has almost the same issues as I had with my camera - so my review seems to apply to the current model.

Nikon seems to take most consumers for a ride, selling overpriced and poor performing products based on the hype they generate from ''price is no object'' type professional cameras. (BTW - most professionals who use SLR's now seem to prefer the Canon Digital's) Many consumers then start associating Nikon with pro level photography. Sad truth - is I did exactly that in my novice days.

Please note that in the digital arena, where the pictures can be instantaneously judged, other camera makers - notably Olympus and Canon have had far greater success.

I was initially quite happy with my Nikon purchase - till my friends bought a Canon and a Minolta. The Minolta especially - took exceptional pictures and blew the Nikon away. The Canon was also quite good - a tad lower than the Minolta in the overall quality of pictures. Mind you, both these camera's cost substantially less than the Nikon. I am talking of many pictures taken over years.

There were a number of problems with the Nikon -

The supplied Nikon 35 to 70 mm lens was not very sharp. The difference could be discerned even on 4X6 prints. To top this, the aperture control diaphragm on this lens got stuck multiple times - went for repair twice and but broke after 6 more months. I finally gave up and got tokina lenses - thats when I got some nice images.

Its exposure control in automatic mode (matrix metering) was simply put it - atrocious. I have lost many a photograph because of this problem. I know this problem is not unique to my Nikon camera - because of a review of many SLR's that was done on Popular Photography many years back. The Nikon's came at the bottom of the heap when the pictures were judged. At the top were the Minolta's! One upside was that I was forced to learn to judge exposure controls manually - I got lot better pictures that way. Thank you Nikon for teaching me Manual Photography with an Automatic Camera. I should have bought the Pentax K-1000 and saved myself a few hundred dollars.

I don't know about the N60, but the 6006 would happily drain off the very expensive lithium batteries if you forgot to switch it off (not unusual). Can you imagine an oversight of this nature?. Maybe this problem is rectified in the current models.

If you have to buy an SLR - try a Minolta or a Canon. Better yet - save your monies and get yourself a digital camera. The Olympus D560 (if you are on a budget) and the Olympus C-5050 are outstanding cameras. I couldn't be happier with my Olympus C-4000 purchased earlier. The far cheaper D560 from olympus also has exceptional picture quality. It just astounds you when you see an 8X10 photo print from this shirt pocket size wonder. The pictures are simply incredible - even better on print. Exact exposure and very sharp with good contrast and color rendering. The more expensive Canon's - Like the G2 and G3 are great, but the lower end Canon models I have examined tends to have somewhat soft picture quality about it. The Fuji 3800 is also pretty good.

If you want a film based point and shoot camera - try Fuji - I own two of these - (wife uses one) yeah - I have quite a few cameras. Love the Fuji's - sharp and exposures are bang on. Consumer Reports in the past has consistently rated them #1 in their tests. And please - stay away from a Nikon.