Nikon® D3000: Digital Field Guide

Chapter 2. Nikon D3000 Essentials

This chapter covers some of the most commonly changed settings of the camera, such as the exposure modes, metering, AF settings, and ISO. All of these combined settings are used to create your image and can be tweaked and adjusted to reflect your artistic vision or simply to be sure that your pictures come out exactly as you want, even in difficult lighting situations. Also covered in this chapter are discussions about Picture Controls and white balance, both of which affect the colors in your images.

The combination of different camera settings determines how your images look.

Exposure Modes

Exposure modes determine how the different settings are chosen to get the desired exposure. The Nikon D3000 has quite a few options to help you get the exposure that is right for the scene you are photographing.

There are modes that are fully automatic, some that are semiautomatic (in that you choose one aspect of the exposure and the camera takes care of the rest), and a fully manual mode in which you determine all the settings according to your calculations.

Auto modes

The D3000 has two fully automatic, or Auto, modes that do all the work for you. These are simple grab-and-go settings to use when you're in a hurry or you just don't want to be bothered with changing the settings. The Auto modes control everything from shutter speed and aperture to ISO sensitivity ...