When reading Ken Rockwell's advice, always get a second, and a third and a fourth opinion, at least.
i couldn't agree with you more koffie, everything that ken rockwell says has to be taken with a grain of salt. the rest of you that do not know who ken rockwell is just go to his website and read his self written bio and life philosophies and you will get what type a person he is. shame his poor wife and kids!
so back on topic, sitnet, you are basically damned if you wait and damned if you don't wait but that is way it is with anything electronic these days and in this economy.
there is a big rumor that nikon is going to stop production on the beloved d40 this coming year and that the current d60 will take the place of the d40. with the d60 you are not going to find something like a d60x, which is what they tried (and failed) to do with the d40x so the d60 that is on the market now is what nikon will stick with so you are not going to lose or gain any technology with that camera in a years time, of course i am speculating here.
the big thing that i would have to say to you is look at the purchase in a financial light. right now the rand is hanging in there, not brilliantly so but it is hanging on but who knows a year from now (elections are coming up). right now that d60 is going to cost you about R6000 with the kit, a year from now it could cost much more depending on the rand's value against the world's market. you never know though, if the rand hangs on then you most likely be looking at or around the same price for the d60 as it is now. i think it will be the same price until nikon brings out a model between the d60 and d80 and i have not heard any rumors of nikon doing just that this year.
sorry for the long post guys, please forgive...i must ask you sitnet, you seem really undecided about getting a dslr so perhaps you should wait a year until you are burning for one. it would be a waste of money to buy a dslr and just let it sit you know? having a dslr is not a cheap hobby. i kid you not, just today i bought a sigma 70mm macro and a polarizing filter for R5000 and that is cheap when you are talking about a lens and for me that R5000 was a bear to save for. so you might want to think about that.
to answer some of your questions about the 18-55, no, you will not be able to take pictures of flowers, insects and drops of water with it unless you purchase some extension tubes to slap on the 18-55 but then your working distance is going to be nil so shooting insects with it will be out of the question because of the close working distance. for those type of shots you will need a dedicated macro lens with 1.1. magnification and one with a good working distance if you plan on taking pictures of insects. you can go cheaper than buying a dedicated macro and settle on a 70-300 zoom/macro but again it is not a dedicated macro, you working distance will be good but you will only get a 1.2 magnification which is great for taking full on pictures of flowers but not so great when taking pictures of insects.
there are some brilliant bridge cameras out there, a bridge camera is a camera between a point and shoot and a dslr and i have seen some that take some amazing macro shots so you might want to look into that, they are about the same price a a dslr but you won't have to buy a new lens for it every time you want to change your style of photography so in the long run they are cheaper than a dslr and some of them have amazing photo quality to them and high pixel ratings so i would check into that as well.
Do you think i.e a Canon 450D is better than Nikon D60 though?
