Nikon D3000 Operation
As with the Nikon D40 which it replaces, the Nikon D3000 is aimed at beginner and casual shooters, rather than professionals and hard-core SLR enthusiasts. Befitting that purpose, the D3000 inherits an interface that's very similar to that of the D40 -- a camera which we described as clean, uncluttered, and as approachable as possible. While the body has been restyled slightly to accommodate its larger rear-panel LCD display, the positions of all controls are essentially unchanged. The Nikon D3000's design keeps the number of buttons, knobs and dials to a minimum, and replaces the top-panel data display traditionally found on more complex SLRs with a very attractive and logically laid-out information display on the large, rear-panel LCD screen. The mode dial is easily accessed with your thumb while you're holding the grip, and sports a new Guide mode aimed at making the camera even less intimidating to those who don't yet understand the technical details of things like apertures, shutter speeds, and ISO sensitivities. The Guide menu not only helps beginners set the camera up to achieve the effects they desire, but also explains what settings changes have been made and why, providing a valuable learning opportunity. Experienced shooters may seldom if ever touch the Guide menu, but it could prove a lifesaver for less-experienced photographers, allowing the user manual to stay at home.
Nikon D3000 Shooting Mode
The illustration below (Courtesy of Nikon USA) shows the meaning of the various icons and readouts in the Graphic display mode.
1 |
Shooting mode |
14 |
Active D-Lighting |
2 |
Aperture (f-number) |
15 |
Metering |
3 |
Shutter speed |
16 |
AF-area mode |
4 |
Shutter speed display |
17 |
Focus mode |
5 |
Aperture display |
18 |
Release mode |
6 |
Exposure indicator |
19 |
ISO sensitivity |
Exposure compensation indicator |
20 |
White balance |
|
Electronic rangefinder |
21 |
Image size |
|
7 |
Auto-area AF indicator |
22 |
Image quality |
3D-tracking indicator |
23 |
Battery indicator |
|
Focus point |
24 |
Beep indicator |
|
8 |
Help icon |
25 |
Picture control |
9 |
Flash mode |
26 |
Auto ISO sensitivity indicator |
10 |
Exposure compensation |
27 |
Manual flash indicator |
11 |
Flash compensation |
Flash compensation indicator for optional flash units |
|
12 |
Number of exposures remaining |
28 |
Date imprint indicator |
13 |
"K" (appears when memory remains for over 1000 exposures) |
29 |
Eye-Fi connection indicator |
There's a lot of information shown there, but a logical layout and the large/sharp LCD screen makes it easy to tell what you're looking at. The column of data down the right side of the screen and the row across the bottom of the screen represent settings you can adjust directly from this screen.
Nikon D3000 Playback Mode
The Nikon D3000's histogram display modes are very useful tools. Histogram displays are common on professional digital cameras (and many amateur models now), regarded as almost mandatory by many pros for evaluating exposure levels. A histogram is simply a graph of how many pixels there are in the image at each brightness level. The brightness is the horizontal axis, running from black at the left to white at the right. The height of the graph shows the relative number of pixels having each brightness level. This sort of display is very handy for determining under- or overexposure. An underexposed image will have a histogram with all the data lumped on the left-hand side, with nothing reaching all the way to the right. Likewise, an overexposed image will have all the data lumped on the right side. The one defect of a luminance histogram is that it might not be obvious that there's clipping if it is restricted to only one of the three color channels. The inclusion of an RGB histogram function hence allows the photographer to confirm that each individual color channel is correctly exposed, with no clipped values.
To return the Nikon D3000 to shooting mode, simply press the Playback button again, or half-press the shutter button.
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