I would stick with the major retail camera stores like BH photo, and Adorama.. Good place to make comparisons as well. If money is an factor(when is it not) you might want to check the overstock, used and refurbished /open box cameras on their sites.
I can not compare the camera on your list but for wildlife I like a Sony 580.. or the new 24 meg one that they have on the way.. what I like about it is the feature that allows me to double the focal length of the lens.. so my 28-300 mounted on an aps c can be come a 900 .. But my major consideration in long shoots outdoors might be the camera weight and as often as not I have been happy with something as small as a pint and shot SX200 from Canon. Get the camera you are comfortable with and can afford. You might also consider other camera from the same makers such as a T3i rather than the T2
I imagine it depends on the kind of shooting you do. I thought abuot a D50 some time back but opted against it.. It was just too much weight to hang around my neck all day. You might want to get any camera you are thinking of in your hand before making a purchase. For me Sony , Nikon, and Panasonic were better choices because I had legacy lens that fit. But without knowing why you want to switch from the D60 it is kind of a hard call. You might want to check the specifications and reviews of anything you are considering first. I thought a D60 was pretty good for most uses.
Different times of day may require a variation of techniques. With digital it is a big advantage being able to see lightning shots as soon as you've taken them - so adjustments to exposure can be made while the storm is still active. Of course the biggest advantage is that it costs nothing and you see the results immediately. There is a negative: digital is less forgiving with over exposed lightning pictures than film. You need a camera that can be put on a tripod and have a cable remote release. I found trying to zoom in on distant lightening didn't work well for me, and don't bother trying. Your camera shoud be focused for infinity , anything slightly out of focs with digital shots like this are really bad. All compact digital have an infinity setting. When using a DSLR it gets a little more complex. To find infinity at night you can use the autofocus system to try and focus on a distance light source then switch the lens to manual focus once this is found. If you cannot get the autofocus mechanism to work you will have to manually focus the lens. A problem with most autofocus lenses is that they either have no infinity marker (sideways 8 symbol) or the centre of the infinity marker is not really infinity, You might need some trial and error on your equipment. I like to use one of the old manual focus lenses which seem more precise. At night Set the aperture (F-stop) to between F2.8 and F5.6. Watch the lightening for a bit before you take the picture. Some cloud to ground flashes are very fast , and some take longer.In general exposure time shoud not be more than 15 seconds. But if you can't see it developing you can try longer. If the lightening is fast Press the cable/remote to open the shutter. Wait for the lightning (or multiple lightning) to occur within the frame of your shot. Release the shutter. If it is lasting longer do the same thing .. open the shutter when you see the flash and then hold it open for as long as you want. During the day it becomes a matter of reacting fast and pointing in the right direction . If your camera has a fast continuous shooting mode - you can always just do a continuous shoot and hope that lightning occurs during that time. It does require a lot of discarding of images afterwards, but you may be rewarded with a fully branched daytime CG lightning picture
I often rent equipment from Adorama in NYC. But for the most part it is the high end kind of thing that is very expensive and which I would rarely use.
I often rent equipment from Adorama in NYC. But for the most part it is the high end kind of thing that is very expensive and which I would rarely use.