Nikon D3000 For Dummies E-Book

Julie Adair King

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 442

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Professional photography advice for D3000 beginners The Nikon D3000 is Nikon's new entry-level camera. With the D3000, you get all the features of Nikon's older cameras along with an updated battery, larger monitor, and improved focus features. In addition, the D3000 also offers simpler menus to help first-time DSLR users. Assuming no prior dSLR knowledge, veteran author Julie Adair King offers you a tour of the camera body, a hands-on how-to on all the features of the D3000, and a step-by-step walkthrough of how to get the photos you want. * Explains shooting in auto mode, reviews the new video option, and covers working with file size and quality * Walks you through shifting out of automatic mode and using the D3000's lighting, exposure, focus, and color features * Demonstrates getting photos from your camera to your PC, developing an effective file system, and sharing photos via print, online, or other ways Packed with useful tips, this helpful guide encourages you to take control of your camera.

Leseprobe

Nikon D30000 For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Quick Look at What’s Ahead

Part I: Fast Track to Super Snaps

Part II: Taking Creative Control

Part III: Working with Picture Files

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Icons and Other Stuff to Note

About the Software Shown in This Book

eCheat Sheet

Practice, Be Patient, and Have Fun!

Part I: Fast Track to Super Snaps

1: Getting the Lay of the Land

Getting Comfortable with Your Lens

Attaching a lens

>Removing a lens

>Using a VR (vibration reduction) lens

Setting the focus mode (auto or manual)

Zooming in and out

Adjusting the Viewfinder Focus

Working with Memory Cards

Exploring External Camera Controls

Topside controls

Back-of-the-body controls

Front-left buttons

Ordering from Camera Menus

Using the guided menus

Ordering off the main menus

Monitoring Shooting Settings

Using the Quick Settings Screen

Displaying Help Screens

Customizing Your Camera

Restoring Default Settings

2: Taking Great Pictures, Automatically

Getting Good Point-and-Shoot Results

Using Flash in Automatic Exposure Modes

Exploring Your Automatic Exposure Options

Auto mode

Scene modes

Changing the (Shutter Button) Release Mode

3: Controlling Picture Quality and Size

Diagnosing Quality Problems

Considering Resolution (Image Size)

Pixels and print quality

Pixels and screen display size

Pixels and file size

Resolution recommendations

Understanding the Image Quality Options

JPEG: The imaging (and Web) standard

NEF (RAW): The purist’s choice

My take: Choose JPEG Fine or NEF (RAW)

Setting Image Size and Quality

4: Reviewing Your Photos

Setting Playback Timing Preferences

Adjusting playback timing

Adjusting and disabling instant review

Enabling Automatic Picture Rotation

Viewing Images in Playback Mode

Viewing multiple images at a time

Displaying photos in Calendar view

Zooming in for a closer view

Viewing Picture Data

File Information mode

RGB Histogram mode

Highlight display mode

Shooting Data display mode

Overview Data mode

Deleting Photos

Deleting images one at a time

Deleting all photos

Deleting a batch of selected photos

Protecting Photos

Part II: Taking Creative Control

5: Getting Creative with Exposure and Lighting

Introducing the Exposure Trio: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO

Understanding exposure-setting side effects

Doing the exposure balancing act

Exploring the Advanced Exposure Modes

Reading (And Adjusting) the Meter

Setting ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed

Adjusting aperture and shutter speed

Controlling ISO

Choosing an Exposure Metering Mode

Applying Exposure Compensation

Using Autoexposure Lock

Expanding Tonal Range with Active D-Lighting

Using Flash in P, S, A, and M Modes

Enabling flash and adjusting the flash mode

Adjusting flash output

Using an external flash head

6: Manipulating Focus and Color

Reviewing Focus Basics

Taking Advantage of Manual-Focusing Aids

Adjusting Autofocus Performance

Understanding the AF-area mode setting

Changing the Focus mode setting

Choosing the right autofocus combo

Using autofocus lock

Manipulating Depth of Field

Controlling Color

Correcting colors with white balance

Changing the white balance setting

Fine-tuning white balance settings

Creating white balance presets

Choosing a Color Space: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB

Taking a Quick Look at Picture Controls

7: Putting It All Together

Recapping Basic Picture Settings

Setting Up for Specific Scenes

Shooting still portraits

Capturing action

Capturing scenic vistas

Capturing dynamic close-ups

Coping with Special Situations

Part III: Working with Picture Files

8: Downloading, Organizing, and Archiving Your Picture Files

Sending Pictures to the Computer

Connecting the camera and computer

Starting the transfer process

Downloading and Organizing Photos with the Nikon Software

Downloading with Nikon Transfer

Browsing images in Nikon ViewNX

Viewing picture metadata

Organizing pictures

Processing RAW (NEF) Files

Processing RAW images in the camera

Processing RAW files in ViewNX

9: Printing and Sharing Your Pictures

Printing Possibilities: Retail or Do-It-Yourself?

Preventing Potential Printing Problems

Match resolution to print size

Allow for different print proportions

Get print and monitor colors in synch

Preparing Pictures for E-Mail

Creating small copies using the camera

Downsizing images in Nikon ViewNX

Creating a Digital Slide Show

Viewing Your Photos on a Television

Part IV: The Part of Tens

10: Ten Fun and Practical Retouch Menu Features

Applying the Retouch Menu Filters

Removing Red-Eye

Shadow Recovery with D-Lighting

Boosting Shadows, Contrast, and Saturation Together

Two Ways to Tweak Color

Applying digital lens filters

Manipulating color balance

Creating Monochrome Photos

Softening Focus for a Dreamy Effect

Creating a Color Outline

Cropping Your Photo

Comparing Your Original and Retouched Photos

11: Ten Special-Purpose Features to Explore on a Rainy Day

Annotate Your Images

Creating Custom Image Folders

Changing the Function Button’s Function

Customizing the AE-L/AF-L Button

Using the Shutter Button to Lock Exposure and Focus

Controlling Flash Output Manually

Adding a Starburst Effect

Combining Two Photos with Image Overlay

Turning Still Photos into a Stop-Motion Movie

Creating a Miniature Effect

Nikon® D3000 For Dummies®

by Julie Adair King

Nikon® D3000 For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009939783

ISBN: 978-0-470-57894-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Julie Adair King is the author of many books about digital photography and imaging, including the best-selling Digital Photography For Dummies. Her most recent titles include a series of For Dummies guides to popular digital SLR cameras, including the Nikon D5000, D300s, D90, D60, and D40/D40x. Other works include Digital Photography Before & After Makeovers, Digital Photo Projects For Dummies, Julie King’s Everyday Photoshop For Photographers, Julie King’s Everyday Photoshop Elements, and Shoot Like a Pro!: Digital Photography Techniques. When not writing, King teaches digital photography at such locations as the Palm Beach Photographic Center. A graduate of Purdue University, she resides in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Author’s Acknowledgments

I am grateful beyond measure to the team of talented professionals at John Wiley & Sons for all their efforts in putting together this book. Special thanks go to editors Kim Darosett and Heidi Unger, for whom the adjective awesome is an understatement; I am so, so fortunate to have you on my team. I also owe much to many other folks in both the editorial and art departments, including Rashell Smith, Shelley Lea, Steve Hayes, Andy Cummings, and Mary Bednarek. Last but not least, I am also indebted to technical editor Chuck Pace, without whose insights and expertise this book would not have been the same.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

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Acquisitions and Editorial

Project Editor: Kim Darosett

Executive Editor: Steven Hayes

Copy Editor: Heidi Unger

Technical Editor: Chuck Pace

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Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

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Indexer: Slivoskey Indexing Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

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Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Once upon a time, making the move from a point-and-shoot digital camera to an SLR model required boatloads of cash and the willingness to cart around a bulky, heavy piece of equipment. All that changed a few years ago when Nikon introduced the D40, a digital SLR that offered a compact size and an equally compact price.

With the D3000, Nikon proves once again that you don’t have to give an arm and a leg — or strain your back and neck — to enjoy dSLR photography. This new addition to the Nikon family of dSLRs offers the same easy-to-love size and price tag that made the D40 so popular. And the two cameras share another important characteristic: Like the D40, the D3000 doesn’t skimp on power or performance, offering a great set of features to help you take your photography to the next level.

In fact, the D3000 offers so many features that sorting them all out can be more than a little confusing, especially if you’re new to digital photography, SLR photography, or both. For starters, you may not even be sure what SLRmeans or how it affects your picture taking, let alone have a clue as to all the other techie terms you encounter in your camera manual — resolution, aperture, white balance, and so on. And if you’re like many people, you may be so overwhelmed by all the controls on your camera that you haven’t yet ventured beyond fully automatic picture-taking mode. Which is a shame because it’s sort of like buying a Porsche 911 and never heading out for the open road.

Therein lies the point of Nikon D3000 For Dummies. Through this book, you can discover not just what each bell and whistle on your camera does, but also when, where, why, and how to put it to best use. Unlike many photography books, this one doesn’t require any previous knowledge of photography or digital imaging to make sense of things, either. In classic For Dummies style, everything is explained in easy-to-understand language, with lots of illustrations to help clear up any confusion.

In short, what you have in your hands is the paperback version of an in-depth photography workshop tailored specifically to your Nikon picture-taking powerhouse.

A Quick Look at What’s Ahead

This book is organized into four parts, each devoted to a different aspect of using your camera. Although chapters flow in a sequence that’s designed to take you from absolute beginner to experienced user, I’ve also tried to make each chapter as self-standing as possible so that you can explore the topics that interest you in any order you please.

The following sections offer brief previews of each part. If you’re eager to find details on a specific topic, the index shows you exactly where to look.

Part I: Fast Track to Super Snaps

Part I contains four chapters that help you get up and running with your D3000:

Chapter 1, “Getting the Lay of the Land,” offers a tour of the external controls on your camera, shows you how to navigate camera menus to access internal options, and walks you through initial camera setup and customization steps.

Chapter 2, “Taking Great Pictures, Automatically,” shows you how to get the best results when using the camera’s fully automatic exposure modes, including the Scene modes such as Sports mode, Portrait mode, and Landscape mode.

Chapter 3, “Controlling Picture Quality and Size,” introduces you to two camera settings that are critical whether you shoot in automatic or manual mode: the Image Size and Image Quality settings, which control resolution (pixel count), file format, file size, and picture quality.

Chapter 4, “Reviewing Your Photos” offers just what its title implies. Look here to find out how to view your photos on the camera monitor, delete unwanted images, and protect your favorites from accidental erasure.

Part II: Taking Creative Control

Chapters in this part help you unleash the full creative power of your D3000 by moving into semiautomatic or manual photography modes.

Chapter 5, “Getting Creative with Exposure and Lighting,” covers the all-important topic of exposure, starting with an explanation of three critical exposure controls: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. This chapter also discusses your camera’s advanced exposure modes (P, S, A, and M); explains exposure options such as Active D-Lighting, metering modes, and exposure compensation; and offers tips for using flash.

Chapter 6, “Manipulating Focus and Color,” provides help with controlling those aspects of your pictures. Head here for information about your camera’s many autofocusing options, for tips on how to manipulate depth of field (the zone of sharp focus in a picture), and for details about color controls such as white balance.

Chapter 7, “Putting It All Together,”summarizes all the techniques explained in earlier chapters, providing a quick-reference guide to the camera settings and shooting strategies that produce the best results for specific types of pictures: portraits, action shots, landscapes, close-ups, and more.

Part III: Working with Picture Files

This part of the book, as its title implies, discusses the often-confusing aspect of moving your pictures from camera to computer and beyond.

Chapter 8, “Downloading, Organizing, and Archiving Your Picture Files,” guides you through the process of transferring pictures from your camera memory card to your computer’s hard drive or other storage device. Look here, too, for details about using the D3000’s built-in tool for processing files that you shoot in the Nikon RAW format (NEF). Just as important, this chapter explains how to organize and safeguard your photo files.

Chapter 9, “Printing and Sharing Your Pictures,” helps you turn your digital files into “hard copies” that look as good as those you see on the camera monitor. This chapter also explains how to prepare your pictures for online sharing, create digital slide shows, and, for times when you have the neighbors over, display your pictures on a television screen.

Part IV: The Part of Tens

In famous For Dummies tradition, the book concludes with two “top ten” lists containing additional bits of information and advice.

Chapter 10, “Ten Fun and Practical Retouch Menu Features,” shows you how to fix less-than-perfect images using features found on your camera’s Retouch menu, such as automated red-eye removal. You also find out how to apply color effects and perform a few other photo-enhancement tricks.

Chapter 11, “Ten Special-Purpose Features to Explore on a Rainy Day,” presents information about some camera features that, while not found on most “Top Ten Reasons I Bought My D3000” lists, are nonetheless interesting, useful on occasion, or a bit of both.

Icons and Other Stuff to Note

If this isn’t your first For Dummies book, you may be familiar with the large, round icons that decorate its margins. If not, here’s your very own icon-decoder ring:

A Tip icon flags information that will save you time, effort, money, or some other valuable resource, including your sanity. Tips also point out techniques that help you get the best results from specific camera features.

When you see this icon, look alive. It indicates a potential danger zone that can result in much wailing and teeth-gnashing if ignored. In other words, this is stuff that you really don’t want to learn the hard way.

Lots of information in this book is of a technical nature — digital photography is a technical animal, after all. But if I present a detail that is useful mainly for impressing your technology-geek friends, I mark it with this icon.

I apply this icon either to introduce information that is especially worth storing in your brain’s long-term memory or to remind you of a fact that may have been displaced from that memory by some other pressing fact.

Additionally, I need to point out three additional details that will help you use this book:

Other margin art: Replicas of some of your camera’s buttons and onscreen symbols also appear in the margins of some paragraphs. I include these to provide a quick reminder of the appearance of the button or feature being discussed.

Software menu commands: In sections that cover software, a series of words connected by an arrow indicates commands that you choose from the program menus. For example, if a step tells you to “choose File⇒Convert Files,” click the File menu to unfurl it and then click the Convert Files command on the menu.

Camera firmware: Firmware is the internal software that controls many of your camera’s operations. The D3000 firmware consists of two parts, called A and B. At the time this book was written, both A and B were version 1.00.

Occasionally, Nikon releases firmware updates, and it’s a good idea to check out the Nikon Web site (www.nikon.com) periodically to find out whether any updates are available. (Chapter 1 tells you how to determine which firmware version your camera is running.) Firmware updates typically don’t carry major feature changes — they’re mostly used to solve technical glitches in existing features — but if you do download an update, be sure to read the accompanying description of what it accomplishes so that you can adapt my instructions as necessary.

About the Software Shown in This Book

Providing specific instructions for performing photo organizing and editing tasks requires that I feature specific software. In sections that cover file downloading, archiving, and e-mail sharing, I selected Nikon ViewNX and Nikon Transfer, both of which ship free with your camera and work on both the Windows and Mac operating systems.

Rest assured, though, that the tools used in ViewNX and Nikon Transfer work very similarly in other programs, so you should be able to easily adapt the steps to whatever software you use. (I recommend that you read your software manual for details. And of course, there are For Dummies books on all the major image editing applications, and you can use them if you find the manual a tad — ahem — boring.)

eCheat Sheet

As a little added bonus, you can find an electronic version of the famous For Dummies Cheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/nikond3000. The Cheat Sheet contains a quick-reference guide to all the buttons, dials, switches, and exposure modes on your D3000. Log on, print it out, and tuck it in your camera bag for times when you don’t want to carry this book with you.

Practice, Be Patient, and Have Fun!

To wrap up this preamble, I want to stress that if you initially think that digital photography is too confusing or too technical for you, you’re in very good company. Everyone finds this stuff a little mind-boggling at first. So take it slowly, experimenting with just one or two new camera settings or techniques at first. Then, each time you go on a photo outing, make it a point to add one or two more shooting skills to your repertoire.

I know that it’s hard to believe when you’re just starting out, but it really won’t be long before everything starts to come together. With some time, patience, and practice, you’ll soon wield your camera like a pro, dialing in the necessary settings to capture your creative vision almost instinctively.

So without further ado, I invite you to grab your camera, a cup of whatever it is you prefer to sip while you read, and start exploring the rest of this book. Your D3000 is the perfect partner for your photographic journey, and I thank you for allowing me, through this book, to serve as your tour guide.

Part I

Fast Track to Super Snaps

Making sense of all the controls on your D3000 isn’t something you can do in an afternoon — heck, in a week, or maybe even a month. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take great pictures today. By using your camera’s automatic point-and-shoot modes, you can capture terrific images with very little effort. All you do is compose the scene, and the camera takes care of almost everything else.

This part shows you how to take best advantage of your camera’s automatic features and also addresses some basic setup steps, such as adjusting the viewfinder to your eyesight and getting familiar with the camera menus, buttons, and dials. In addition, chapters in this part explain how to obtain the very best picture quality, whether you shoot in an automatic or manual mode, and how to use your camera’s picture-playback features.

1

Getting the Lay of the Land

In This Chapter

Attaching and using an SLR lens

Adjusting the viewfinder to your eyesight

Working with memory cards

Selecting from menus

Using the Shooting Information and Quick Settings displays

Viewing onscreen help

Customizing basic operations

I still remember the day that I bought my first SLR film camera. I was excited to finally move up from my one-button point-and-shoot camera, but I was a little anxious, too. My new pride and joy sported several unfamiliar buttons and dials, and the explanations in the camera manual clearly were written for someone with an engineering degree. And then there was the whole business of attaching the lens to the camera, an entirely new task for me. I saved up my pennies a long time for that camera — what if my inexperience caused me to damage the thing before I even shot my first pictures?

You may be feeling similarly insecure if your Nikon D3000 is your first SLR, although some of the buttons on the camera back may look familiar if you’ve previously used a digital point-and-shoot camera. If your D3000 is both your first SLR and first digital camera, you may be doubly intimidated.