The Canon D30 is a very popular digital SLR with an image quality many love. Now Canon launched the new Canon EOS D60.

The main and important difference is that the resolution nearly doubled and that for an even lower price (about $2200 street price).

We got the chance to test the D60 with the 400mm f/4 DO lens and the 28-70mm f/2.8 zoom.

This review will be very brief as there has been said enough about the D30 and the D60 is mainly an improved D30. For more in depth reviews visit the links at the end of this page.

We are actually more critical to color than to image detail. So what about the color? If we just would use the Canon software as is then we would find the colors far to aggressive and not to our taste (we know this is subjective and others might not share this view).

Actually Canon does not flag any output by a color profile (sRGB or even Adobe RGB) and leaves all color management to the user. Read in our the section about RAW conversion and you will find notes about the currently available Canon RAW converters. Many 3rd party tools are more convenient to use than the "Canon Digital Camera 4.2". But as most of them are based on the Canon SDK (free available from Canon for 3rd parties!!) they do not add the missing color management.

But there is also very good news. Once you use a good camera profile for the D60 you get excellent results.

Here are your options:

• Create your own profiles with tools like inCamera
• Get Fred Miranda's "D60 LPbatch" actions which come with a great D60 profile
• Get some free available generic profiles for the D60

Once you use these profiles the D60 also shines in terms of color

Canon targets with the D60 the advanced amateur market and as such the body in not in the same league (auto focus, ruggedness, speed) as Canon's 1D.

For our kind of photography the D60 would be just fine to work with.

A very good digital camera got even better. We could live with it's limitations anytime. But we urge you to use a proper camera profile with the D60 to get best color results.

You can find some comments about the Canon SW here.

Highly recommended

• Camera Profiles
• The Digital Workflow
• RAW file processing

You can order the Canon EOS D60 here

or compare prices at

Other reviews

• Michael Reichmann's D60 review
• Phil Askey's D60 Review
• Steve Sanders D60 Review
• Imaging Resource
• Fred Miranda compares the D60 to the 1D