Canon EOS 60D

The Canon EOS 60D is Canon’s latest prosumer digital SLR release this year. In these times where DSLRs are hanging from the necks of every other person you thought could never be a photography enthusiast, it is no wonder Canon has revamped its entry-level prosumer DSLR.

Design

The Canon 60D is only slightly smaller than its predecessor, the Canon 50D, and is targeted at the advanced amateur market.

Its body has a special conductive fiber that is presumably used for EMI (electromagnetic interference) shielding and its frame is made of aluminum and polycarbonate enhanced with glass fiber. It also has a more textured body and smaller grip which mostly makes it more comfortable to hold in your hands, depending on hand size.

The Canon 60D features an all-new versatile tilting and swiveling vari-angle 1,040,000-dot LCD screen, allowing users to easily compose shots that were once thought virtually impossible. While Canon’s past vari-angle swivel mechanisms have not felt too solid, this one seems to be a winner with smooth movement and resistance stiff enough to stay put. Also, users will find the largely absent infrared remote control window on this new camera, together with a new mono microphone and a stereo microphone jack for better quality movie recording.

On the top of the camera, users will find a highly-controversial locking Mode dial that in my opinion, is extremely useful once you get used to it considering it prevents you from accidentally changing the exposure mode. In addition, the new 8-way control wheel is certainly an improvement over its fellow Canon siblings, making its menus more user-friendly and easily accessible. Also, the LCD on the top is no longer rectangular but tapered with a visibly smaller flash size.

Actual user review:
“I have owned a T1i and a T2i which I used for semi-professional family shoots. I recently upgraded to the 60D and honestly was extremely surprised at the big upgrade it is from the T2i. For advanced users, it is more than worth the extra cash. It fits in my hand much better and the controls are easier to access. When using my 50mm 1.4 the 60D focuses much more accurately than my T2i does. I was having a lot of problem with the T2i front focusing, but the 60D has been spot on. I am also very pleased with how it handles my indoor lighting. Shots with my T2i usually turned out yellow when on auto-whitebalance, but the 60D seem to produce much better indoor color. Another surprise was how quiet the shutter mechanism is. It is much softer than the T2i which will be very nice with the wedding shoots I have coming up. There are so many more advanced options in the menus than you get on a Rebel. Another surprise for me was that it has ISO increments in 1/3 stops. For people considering taking the photography to the next level, I couldn’t recommend this product any higher.” – S.M. Long (USA)

Features

The Canon 60D sports a 18.0-megapixel APS-C sized CMOS image sensor with a 1.6x focal length crop and shoots pictures up to a maximum size of 5,184 x 3,456 pixels.

Its DIGIC 4 image processor is similar to its predecessor, the Canon 50D but with its increased resolution, the Canon 60D’s burst shooting speed is only 5.3 frames per second, down from 6.3 frames per second on the Canon 50D, while maximum burst depth is largely unchanged at 16 RAW images or 58 large/fine JPEG images.

This new release from Canon has an ISO range of 100 to 6400 with the ability to extend to ISO 12,800 and offers an Auto ISO function. It also features a 9-point diamond array AF sensor with 9 cross-type f/5.6 AF points and an ability to detect the light source, including the color temperature and whether or not the light is pulsing. AF modes include One-shot, Predictive AI Servo AF and AI Focus AF. Unfortunately, the Canon 60D does not have the Lens AF Microadjustment custom function that is found on the Canon 50D and Canon 7D. This feature allows users to tune the camera’s autofocus to compensate for lenses that back or front-focus.

The Canon 60D has a wide range of exposure modes that are divided into 2 distinct groups – the Basic and Creative zones. Basic exposure modes include the Full Auto, Flash Off, Creative Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up (Macro), Sports, and Night Portrait modes while the Creative ones comprise Program, Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority, Manual, and Bulb.

Another notable feature on this Canon DSLR is Canon’s latest metering system that is seen on its recent releases like the Canon EOS 7D and Canon EOS Rebel T2i. The Canon 60D now sports a 63-zone iFCL (Intelligent Focus, Color, and Luminance metering) sensor. With this sensor, the iFCL chip has a dual-layer design with each layer sensitive to different wavelengths of light, allowing subject color to be taken into account when determining exposure. Information on focusing points is also taken into account in metering calculations.

Other features include Live view, built-in flash, an eye-level pentaprism viewfinder with improved 96% coverage and magnification of 0.95x and shutter speeds that range from 1/8,000 to 30 seconds and a bulb position with the electronically controlled, vertical-travel, mechanical focal-plane shutter that has a rate life of 100,000 cycles.

In movie mode, the Canon 60D features both Program auto and Manual exposure control and even allows the use of autofocus during movie recording.

Performance

The Canon 60D is quick to start up and is ready for action in less than a second. It also performs well in low-light conditions even though there is a slight delay in focusing speed when using the Live View mode to take pictures.

In my opinion, the main drawback would lie in its slow speed when focusing on moving objects, while Quick mode offers users a speedier autofocus option.

When it comes to picture quality, the Canon 60D produces fine, crisp images both in JPEG and RAW formats under good sunny conditions. Image taken in RAW format were also noticeable sharper and better when the ISO level was cranked up. This is thanks to the Canon EOS 60D’s extended ISO 6,400 levels which make it more effective at taking pictures under low-light conditions.

Coming to HD videos, the Canon EOS 60D records 1080p videos at 25fps and 720p videos at 60fps. The video quality is impressive with overall great video quality, even when recording indoors or in low-light conditions.

Bottom Line

While it is not as powerful as its more upmarket sibling, the Canon EOS 7D, it certainly chucks out the same high quality images and video consumers have come to expect from Canon, making this Canon EOS 60D perfect for folks looking for an upgrade from an entry level DLSR to a mid-range DSLR camera.

Average User Rating:

“I’ve been using DSLR’s since 2000, and the 60D is quickly becoming my favorite camera. It has much better image quality than my 40D, and even sharper images than my 5D. In fact, I don’t have to use PS actions to “defog” my images anymore. I think this camera is a winner for wedding and glamour photographers because they are relatively inexpensive, you can buy a few and have multiple camera bodies with different lenses. I’ve shot three or four weddings with this camera already and the images and video are incredible. I’m planning to buy another 60D very soon.” – B.Jaber (CA,USA)
“Having owned every Canon Digital SLR since the original Digital Rebel, the 60D finally offers the flip out and rotatable screen which I had in my old Olympus Digital with the fixed lens. That mostly sums up why I bought the camera. I sold my 50D on Amazon soon thereafter. The 60D is an addition to my Canon 7D, so I have a walkaround Tamron 18-270 on the 60D and my Canon 100-400 on the 7D. I’m ready for just about anything.” – R.J.Collins (FL,USA)

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