Everything You Need to Know to Buy Your First DSLR

Posted 08/22/2011 at 2:03pm | by Loyd Case

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Canon EOS 60D

FLEXIBLE CONTROL PLUS HANDHOLDING WHEN NEEDED

At first blush, you’d think the EOS 60D would be more capable than the older EOS 50D. That’s only partially true. It’s got more pixels and a more sophisticated metering engine, but it lacks the metal body and has a lower maximum continuous shooting speed. Making those changes allowed Canon to lower the price a bit: the EOS 60D body can be found for less than $1,000, while the kit with the 18–135mm IS lens is about $1,200.

The D-pad nested inside the 60D's control dial is a bit awkward.

Like the lower-end T3i, the EOS 60D offers a fully articulating LCD screen. Stepping up to the EOS 60D gives you a pentaprism-equipped viewfinder. Using a pentaprism increases the bulk of the camera slightly, but the viewfinder is brighter, making manual focus a bit easier. The EOS 60D feels beefier and more solid than the T3i, and its balance in the hand when using larger lenses is better.

The EOS 60D’s user interface is similar to the T3i’s, which means a fair amount of menu hunting. If you want to change any settings for video, you first need to select video with the mode dial. It’s logical, given the dense structure of Canon’s menus. Having the main dial vertically mounted directly behind the shutter button is a bit awkward. Also, nesting a D-pad inside the quick control dial on the back of the unit is a bit much. One nifty feature is a fully working artificial horizon visible on the LCD, which makes adjusting the relative tilt of the camera easy.

You have easy control over picking your focus point, which makes selective focus easy. But this also makes you realize how limited nine autofocus points are, though all are cross type at higher f-stops. Autofocus is fast, with little hunting in low light. Auto white-balance performance is pretty good, too, though with the usual limits, depending on lighting conditions.

The EOS 60D can shoot up to 16 shots in raw mode before the buffer fills, but that buffer takes a whopping 17 seconds to empty. Shooting at the full 5.3fps makes shooting action a real pleasure, but you need to shoot in relatively short bursts to manage the buffer in raw or switch to JPEG.

The EOS 60D is beefy and balances well with larger lenses.

Interestingly, high-ISO shooting (ISO 3200 and 6400) seems to generate images slightly softer than the T3i. As with the T3i, if you push to ISO 12800, you start to see a lot of chromatic noise. Still, high ISO performance is pretty good overall.

Like the T3i, the EOS 60D supports full HD resolutions, including 1080/30. (None of the DSLRs tested here support interlaced resolutions, however.) Video quality is good, and shooting video is easy and straightforward, although autofocus performance is limited.

The EOS 60D costs a pretty penny, but you’ll be rewarded with fine handling, Canon’s superb selection of lenses, and excellent video capabilities. We wish the user interface was a little less awkward and some of the key features present in the older 50D had been retained, but you’ll get great photos and videos with the EOS 60D.

Nikon D7000

CATERS TO PROS AND CONSUMERS ALIKE

Nikon built the D7000 using a partial magnesium shell (top and bottom) with dust and weather seals. It feels slightly less balanced in the hand than Canon's D60, but this is a minor inconvenience that most shooters won't notice.

The D7000’s user interface is easier to navigate than the D60's, but it does fall down a bit in the mode dial. The detent is pretty light, and there’s no lock, so it’s easy to accidentally change modes without knowing it.

The D7000 offers lots of buttons and controls, but they're cleanly laid out.

What’s impressive about the D7000 is that Nikon pushed its sensor size up to 16MP while improving the high-ISO capabilities over those of past generations. In fact, even at the extreme setting of ISO 25800, there’s almost no color noise, though luminance noise is quite distracting. Auto white-balance occasionally has issues with flickering fluorescent lights even at relatively low ISOs and high shutter speeds.

Nikon’s LCD-based UI offers fewer choices than Canon does but also doesn’t require you to scroll through long menus to find obscure settings. Like the EOS 60D, there is a flexible set of control customization options. The mode dial also has two settings, labeled U1 and U2, that let you easily recall customized settings.

The built-in flash works as expected but can also act as a master in Nikon’s CLS remote flash system if you’re using Nikon SB700 and higher flash units. On the consumer-friendly side, the D7000 has more scene modes than many point-and-shoot cameras—19 in all. Some of these actually work better than we expected. In particular, the Silhouette mode metered complex backlit scenes amazingly well. The D7000 also has two SDXC-capable slots, and you can designate whether to use one to mirror the other as spillover or for video.

That red accent tells you it’s a Nikon.

One highly useful feature is the 39-point autofocus (nine are cross type), which is easily selectable with the D-pad. The ability to fine-tune your focus provides excellent composition opportunities. On the other hand, don’t forget to move the focus point back to center when you’re shooting fast action! The D7000 can shoot at a full 6fps, which makes it a great option for sports, but the buffer size is limited. If you’re shooting 12-bit raw format, the buffer fills at 14 shots and takes 12 seconds to flush. If you want to shoot at a higher dynamic range, the D7000 can shoot in 14-bit mode—but the buffer fills after only a few shots.

Video is more limited than on either Canon camera. 1080p is only supported at 24fps and there’s no 60fps option for 720p. Image quality is good at those resolutions, but if you plan on shooting lots of video, the limitations are worth noting.

Overall, the D7000 is a high-end prosumer camera with some professional aspirations. It’s got great low-light performance, reasonably fast autofocus, and feels pretty good in the hand, though large lenses will alter the balance. The mode dial is a little problematic, and the buffer could be bigger, but overall, the D7000 offers photographers great shooting flexibility coupled with useful handholding when you need it.