Nikon shook-up the digital photography market when it released the D1 to compete with Kodak's monopoly on professional digital SLRs. At the same time, Fujifilm created a smaller, semi-pro, Nikon-compatible (F-mount) camera which would go on to compete with Canon's successful EOS D30 and EOS D60 cameras. Rather than sit and compete only at the high-end as Kodak had done, Nikon announced at the beginning of the year a competitor to Canon's prosumer/semi-pro line-up, the Nikon D100.
The D100 is a winner. While it is not enough to get a D30 owner to sell an acquired set of EF lenses, it does meet-or-exceed the D60's performance in almost all cases. While both are 6MP cameras, the D100 has ever slightly lower effective resolution (6.3 vs. 6.5) and Phil Askey's review mentions better long-exposures with the D60. The D100 supports ISO 1600 to the D60's ISO 1000 cap, weights 775g to the D60's 852g, and has higher capacity lithium-ion batteries. Both cameras will shoot three frames-per-second for eight frames and have a minimum shutter speed of 1/4000. The D100 has a slightly larger sensor (1.5x crop to 1.6x), better white balance control, and five auto-focus points to the D60's three. The D100 even supports multiple delays for the self-timer instead of just the ten-second option offered by the EOS D60. The D100 also turns-on almost instantly, while the D60 still has a couple of seconds delay before it's useable.