Nikon D40/D40x For Dummies

Julie Adair King

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470239469
• eBook ISBN: 9781118052303
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Digital Media

The Nikon D40 and the D40x offer exciting new features that will enable you to take amazing digital photos. These compact cameras pack a big punch at a great price! With Nikon D40/D40x For Dummies, you'll discover what each bell and whistle on your camera does so that you can confidently know when, where, why and how to put each feature to its best use.

This friendly full-color guide translates all of those techie words in your Nikon manual into plain English. You'll learn what terms like SLR, resolution, aperture, white balance, and file format really mean and how they effect picture quality. You'll also find out what happens when you press, jiggle, or twist all those serious-looking controls and how to use them to capture the great shots you imagined taking when you became a Nikon owner. Discover how to:

• Install batteries and memory card
• Adjust viewfinder to your eyesight
• Take great pictures automatically
• Get creative with exposure and lighting
• Manipulate focus and color
• Control picture quality and size
• Download, organize, and archive your photos
• Print and share your photos
• Use fast photo-retouching tricks

Packed with more than 200 beautiful color photos throughout, Nikon D40/D40x For Dummies is more than an easy-to-use handbook, it's the paperback version of an in-depth photography workshop tailored specifically to help you make the absolute most of your Nikon picture-taking powerhouse.

Part I

Fast Track to Super Snaps

In This Part

Making sense of all the controls on your D40 or D40x 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 point-and-shoot automatic 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 camera memory cards

Getting acquainted with external camera controls

Using the camera menus and Shooting Info display

Deciphering the viewfinder data

Displaying onscreen help

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 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 Nikon is both your first SLR and first digital camera, you may be doubly intimidated.

Trust me, though, that your camera isn’t nearly as complicated as its exterior makes it appear. With a little practice and the help of this chapter, which introduces you to each external control, you’ll quickly become as comfortable with your camera’s buttons and dials as you are with the ones on your car’s dashboard.

This chapter also guides you through the process of mounting and using an SLR lens, working with digital memory cards, and navigating your camera’s internal menus. And for times when you don’t have this book handy, I show you how to access the Help system that’s built into your camera.

Getting Comfortable with Your Lens

One of the biggest differences between a point-and-shoot camera and an SLR (single-lens reflex) camera is the lens. With an SLR, you can swap out lenses to suit different photographic needs, going from an extreme close-up lens to a super-long telephoto, for example. In addition, an SLR lens has a movable focusing ring that gives you the option of focusing manually instead of relying on the camera’s autofocus mechanism.

Of course, those added capabilities mean that you need a little background information to take full advantage of your lens. To that end, the next three sections explain the process of attaching, removing, and using this critical part of your camera.

Attaching a lens

Whatever lens you choose, follow these steps to attach it to the camera body:

1. Remove the cap that covers the lens mount on the front of the camera.

2. Remove the cap that covers the back of the lens.

The cap is the one that doesn’t say Nikon on it, in case you aren’t sure.

3. Hold the lens in front of the camera so that the little white dot on the lens aligns with the matching dot on the camera body.

Official photography lingo uses the term mounting index instead of little white dot. Either way, I highlight the markings in question with a red circle in Figure 1-1.

Note that the figure (and others in this chapter) show you the D40 with its so-called “kit lens” — the 18–55mm zoom lens that Nikon sells as a unit with the body. If you buy a lens from a manufacturer other than Nikon, your dot may be red or some other color, so check the lens instruction manual.

4....

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Fast Track to Super Snaps
• 1: Getting the Lay of the Land
• 2: Taking Great Pictures, Automatically
• 3: Controlling Picture Quality and Size
• 4: Reviewing Your Photos
• Part II : Taking Creative Control
• 5: Getting Creative with Exposure and Lighting
• 6: Manipulating Focus and Color
• 7: Putting It All Together
• Part III : Working with Picture Files
• 8: Downloading, Organizing, and Archiving Your Photos
• 9: Printing and Sharing Your Photos
• Part IV : The Part of Tens
• 10: Ten Fast Photo-Retouching Tricks
• 11: Ten Special-Purpose Features to Explore on a Rainy Day
• Appendix: Firmware Notes and Menu Map
• : Further Reading