Top D-SLRs Under $1,000

NIKON D60
Billed as Nikon’s “smallest digital SLR ever” (a title actually shared with the D40 and D40x), the D60 features fast and easy operation, including a 10.2-megapixel CCD sensor, Nikon’s latest EXPEED image processing, Active Dust Reduction with Airflow Control and a stop-motion video mode that creates a stop-motion animation from a sequence of still images.

Newcomers to D-SLR photography will love the D60’s advanced HELP Menu System with Assist Images and eight Digital Vari-Programs, which automatically optimize the settings for shooting popular subject types such as portraits, landscapes, action and more. The D60 also features a quick startup and near-instant shutter response, very accurate 420-segment 3D Color Matrix Metering II, fast and accurate autofocusing, good battery life and a sensor-dust reduction system.

Nikon offers more than 50 lenses for its D-SLRs, ranging in focal length from a 10.5mm fisheye and 12-24mm wide zoom to a 600mm super-telephoto. Since the D60 doesn’t incorporate a focusing motor, it provides autofocusing only through Nikkor lenses
that have a focus drive motor like the AF-S and AF-I Nikkors, which currently have 26 lenses, including those just mentioned.

The D60 can use all other G- and D-type Nikkor lenses, but is limited to manual focusing, and many other Nikkor lenses have additional feature limitations.