Canon 60D Performance

Average to very good speed for a prosumer digital SLR.

The Canon 60D turned in a average startup time for an SLR, which is to say fast enough that it's difficult to measure. Sensor cleaning was enabled on start-up and shut-down, though at start-up pressing the shutter button aborts sensor cleaning, as it should. The Canon 60D's buffer clearing times were long but not a surprise given the buffer size and file sizes. Note that the Canon 60D manual says "SDHC and SDXC cards featuring UHS (Ultra High Speed) enable a maximum writing speed of SD Speed Class 10". We asked Canon for clarification on this, and they said the Canon 60D is not UHS-I compliant but should work with UHS cards at up to SD Class 10 speeds.

The Canon 60D's mode switching times are good, though Record to play is a bit sluggish.

The Canon 60D's full autofocus shutter response using our standard single-point AF test was slightly slower than average for an SLR, at 0.253 second. Interestingly, switching to auto selection AF and allowing the camera to choose the focus point reduced shutter lag to 0.159 second, which is very good. As expected, enabling the built-in flash increased full AF lag a bit, to 0.292 second. (The camera emits flash metering pulses and analyses the results before taking the final flash exposure.) "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure resulted in a lag time of only 0.063 second which is very good for a prosumer SLR. Shutter lag in Manual focus was a bit slower than prefocused, at 0.083 second, which is still quite fast. In Continuous focus mode, shutter lag was 0.251 second.

The Canon 60D's AF lag times in Live View mode were longer than using the optical viewfinder (as expected). We measured 0.999 second using "Quick Mode" which is a bit slow for phase-detect AF, and 1.10 seconds using Live Mode AF which is pretty good for contrast-detect on an SLR. Prefocused, the Canon 60D's shutter lag was very fast for Live View mode, at 0.122 second.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance. We also use the same Sigma 70mm f/2.8 macro with every camera (on all platforms except Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds and Nikon consumer models lacking an in-body focus motor), to further reduce variation, and because our tests showed that focus-determination time with this lens was close to the fastest, across multiple camera bodies from different manufacturers. Being an older design with a non-ultrasonic motor, it wouldn't be the fastest at slewing from one focus setting to another, but that's exactly the reason we measure focus determination speed, which is primarily a function of the camera body, vs focus adjustment speed, which is primarily a function of the lens.

Shot-to-shot cycle times in the Canon 60D's single-shot mode were very good for an SLR, at about 0.25 second for any quality. Buffer length was more than 20 shots for JPEGs, but dropped to 14 for RAW and 7 for RAW+ Large/Fine JPEGs in single-shot mode.

Continuous mode speeds were about average for a prosumer model these days, and they matched Canon's specification of about 5.3 frames/second in any quality mode. A low-speed continuous mode is also available, rated at 3 frames/second.

Measured buffer depths in high-speed continuous mode were good at 34 frames for large/fine JPEGs, 15 frames for RAW mode and 7 frames for RAW+ L/F JPEG. (Note that in our cycle time testing we shoot a target consisting of a fine-grained digital noise pattern, designed to be very hard to compress. This gives us worst-case buffer capacity numbers: You're likely to see greater buffer capacity when shooting more normal subjects.)

The Canon 60D's flash took an average of 2.6 seconds to recharge after a full-power discharge. This is very good, though it varied a lot (from 1.09 to 3.14 seconds) in our testing.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, the Canon 60D's download speeds were quite fast.

Bottom line, the Canon 60D was average to slightly faster than average in most aspects of its operation for a prosumer SLR. While continuous mode speeds weren't state-of-the-art, they are fast enough for most moving subjects, and shutter lag and cycle times were quite good. Buffer sizes were good, especially considering the size of its 18-megapixel files, though clearing times were sluggish with our 30MB/s SDHC card.

Battery
Excellent battery life for a lithium-ion SLR design.

The Canon 60D uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Battery life is well above average when using the optical viewfinder, though as expected, Live View really taxes the battery, so we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the Canon 60D is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Canon 60D accepts SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and does not ship with a card. Canon recommends a Class 6 card or faster for recording HD movies. UHS-I compliant cards are supported, but the camera does not take advantage of their increased bus speeds.

We strongly recommend buying a fast, large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card for the Canon 60D: at least a 4GB card, preferably a 8 or 16GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings, or when shooting RAW files or video. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)