What do you mean you don't sell film in the camera store?

I reaally like my D7000, bought as a kit with the Nikkor 18-105 lens . It's fast, has great image quality, and just, well, yeah, My vote for that. And it saves all my presets!

Other people have given you good advice, and I'm a Canon/Sony shooter so I can't help you with Nikon gear. However, more generally regarding your switch to becoming digital-camera consumer, I can point you toward thinking about something that was a bit eye-opening to me. Good quality camera that will last me a long time. Technology changes fast. Your 2013 camera will take equally good photos in 2017, so you won't need to upgrade. But the 2017 model will probably have some spectacular new features, so you might want to. And not just bells and whistles. For instance, the past couple years have seen incredible progress in low-light performance. Today's digital cameras, even budget compacts, can take indoor/night photos that you simply can't capture with a device built in 2007. Maybe you're not a tech junkie who always wants the latest toy, but there really are substantive reasons why you might want to upgrade every couple, five years. Here's the problem. Most digital cameras, especially the good ones, will hold their value pretty well—but only for twelve, eighteen, maybe twenty-four months. Then the value begins a nose-dive. I own a good quality camera that cost hundreds of dollars and is now worth about fifteen bucks on eBay, if I could get any bids at all. In 2017 when you decide you want the new Nikon sensor that has twice the dynamic range or a camera that can write thirty shots per second, you won't get much trade-in value from your 2013 model. You might be starting from scratch. Some people's approach is to reluctantly become tech junkies. That is, when the new upgrade is released, they sell their old body for a good price and buy the upgrade. This tends to be, ballpark, a two-year cycle. They lose some money each time; but it's far less than rental fees, if you think comparatively, and the benefit is they have whatever new features have been developed (better resolution, higher ISO, etc). I don't necessarily suggest that. Based on your situation, it may not be a good fit for you. I haven't done it myself. But I wish I'd understood earlier and at least made an informed decision to let my equipment devalue to zero, rather than being surprised when I wanted to sell it.

Note: The D3100 and D3200 don't do auto-bracketing. If you ever have any sort of interest in fooling around with HDR photography you will find this extremely annoying.

I'll repeat a lot of what everyone else said. You've already got Nikon lenses, so there's very little reason to switch brands. Wikipedia seems to think the F60 you have won't work with AF-S lenses, so I'm going to guess you only have AF-D lenses. Those won't auto-focus on anything without a built in motor, which rules out most entry level cameras (like the D3100 or D3200) if you care about auto-focus. If you have even older Ai lenses, they won't meter (which rules out all modes but manual). Since you're having trouble justifying spending the money on a D7000, I'll skip full frame cameras and just mention the change an APS-C (DX in Nikon speak) sensor brings. I will re-iterate the change in apparent focal length. Your lenses will appear 50% longer. A standard 50mm becomes a 75mm portrait lens, your wide angle 20mm becomes a 30mm, etc. The good thing about smaller sensors, is cheaper lenses, a 35mm f/1.8 is under $200. And the kit 18-55mm lenses can be found for real cheap. One other thing I haven't seen mentioned is that a smaller sensor will result in a larger depth of field, which may be handy if you're into macro, but not as good if you're trying to isolate a subject from a close background. Just another thing you'll have to consider. Check http://www.keh.com for used equipment, I haven't ordered from them, but their quality requirements are supposed to be very demanding.

(also i was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 18-55VR kit lens)

I might be a bit out of the loop on how folks are shooting HDR these days, but bracketing shots would be unadvisable unless one was assured of a 100% motion-free subject. Better to shoot in Raw mode and let Photoshop do the exposure compensations. Also, the newer sensors have more dynamic range so those features have become more niche. I would have preferred that the D3200 came with auto bracketing because I am a lazy photographer and I'd prefer to have to shots to choose from exposure wise, without changing the settings every time. But it isn't really as necessary as it used to be. I find it difficult to use all the range my sensor provides.

b1tr0t good call. Luckily I googled the vendor before buying and found you are absolutely right as far as vendors. I ended up going with amazon because I already have amazon prime and an amazon visa, but otherwise the prices at B&H and Andorama were exactly the same. I ended up getting photoshop because there was a promotion and so it was only about $45, which made it easy. I'll have to check out Lightroom though.

So I slept on it and I'm starting to talk myself into the D7000 and thinking about getting this.Don't buy from that vendor - I'm 99% certain it is a scam. Amazon and B&H both sell the D7000 body for $896, and the kit with the 18-105mm VR lens for $100 more. Anyone who tries to undercut those prices is running some kind of a scam. Sometimes they will delay for weeks before shipping, sometimes they won't let you buy unless they upsell you on a ridiculous insurance policy, sometimes they are selling gray-market gear (Nikon USA won't honor the warranty). There are four good places to buy camera gear: Your local camera shop, as long as it isn't one of those horrible chains http://www.bhphotovideo.com http://www.adorama.com http://amazon.com/The only downside to Amazon is that they are usually late on release day for new gear. B&H and Adorama own the pro-photo market, and pro-photo isn't valuable enough to Amazon to try to move into the top tier. But Amazon's Prime shipping can be very nice. Never buy from vendors that offer prices that are much lower than min(B&H, Adorama or Amazon), particularly if it is part of a weird bundle of useless crap or has other fine-print strings attached. If you are lucky you will end up with a camera with a voided warranty.

Not pertinent to the question, but one of your comments re: photoshop: While photoshop is pretty great - I certainly use it a fair bit - I've had good results with Lightroom, which uses the same RAW plugins as photoshop at a very good price. And I do recommend using RAW if HDR/bracketing is a concern. You're going to enjoy your new camera, you're getting lots of good advice here.