Nikon D3300 For Dummies
Overview
Take your best shot with your Nikon D3300.
Congratulations on your new Nikon D3300 DSLR! You probably want to get shooting right away, but first you need to know some basics about the controls and functions. Nikon D3300 For Dummies is your ultimate guide to your new camera, packed with everything you need to know to start taking beautiful photographs right out of the gate. Author Julie Adair King draws on a decade of experience in photography instruction, specifically Nikon and Canon, to walk you through the basics and get you started off on the right foot.
Your new Nikon D3300 offers full control over exposure settings, but it also includes pre-sets and auto mode options for beginners. Nikon D3300 For Dummies guides you through the specifics of each setting, and teaches you how to determine
what controls work best in a given situation. Written specifically for the Nikon D3300, the book discusses only the controls and capabilities available on your model, and shows you where to find them and how to use them. Topics include:
- Shooting in auto mode, playback options, and basic troubleshooting
- Working with light, focus, and color, and conquering video mode
- Picture organization, including file transfer and sharing
- Tips on photo editing and select features
This full-color book includes a variety of photos that demonstrate the effects of different settings, allowing you to develop an eye for matching controls to situations. If you want to get the most out of your new DSLR, Nikon D3300 For Dummies is the best, most complete guide on the market.
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About The Author
Julie Adair King has been covering digital photography for over two decades. Along with the seven editions of Digital Photography For Dummies, Julie has also written For Dummies guides covering specific SLR cameras.
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nikon d3300 for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
With the D3300 camera, 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. The D3300 doesn’t skimp on power or performance, offering a great set of features to help you take your photography to the next level. But for novices, the camera also offers plenty of easy-to-use, automated modes.
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Photography
When you capture photos on your Nikon D3300 using the JPEG Image Quality settings (Fine, Normal, or Basic), colors are also affected by the Picture Control setting. This option affects other picture characteristics that the camera tweaks when you shoot in the JPEG format, including contrast and sharpening.
Sharpening is a software process that boosts contrast to create the illusion of slightly sharper focus.
Photography
In the fully automatic exposure modes on the Nikon D3300, you have little control over exposure. You may be able to choose from one or two Flash modes, and you can adjust ISO in the Scene modes and in all Effects modes except Night Vision and Easy Panorama.
But to gain full control over exposure, set the Mode dial to one of the advanced modes highlighted in this figure: P, S, A, or M.
By default, your Nikon D3300 captures images using the sRGB color space, which refers to an industry-standard spectrum of colors. (The s is for standard, and the RGB is for red, green, blue, which are the primary colors in the digital color world.)
This color space was created to help ensure color consistency as an image moves from camera (or scanner) to monitor and printer; the idea was to create a spectrum of colors that all devices can reproduce.
You can fine-tune any White Balance setting on the Nikon D3300 except a custom preset that you create by using the PRE option. Make the adjustment as follows.Display the Shooting menu and highlight White Balance.Press OK.
Highlight the White Balance setting you want to adjust, as shown on the left in the figure, and press the Multi Selector right.
The Nikon D3300 has features and controls around the exterior of the body. The front-left side of the Nikon D3300, shown in the figure, sports these features:
Flash button: In the advanced exposure modes (P, S, A, and M), pressing this button raises the built-in flash. In other modes, the camera controls whether flash is enabled.
Photography
People often ask how slow they can set the shutter speed on their Nikon D3300 and still handhold the camera rather than use a tripod. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
The slow-shutter safety limit varies depending on a couple factors, including your physical abilities and your lens — the heavier the lens, the harder it is to hold steady.
Photography
Found on the lower-left corner of the Nikon D3300 back, the i button activates a control strip that gives you quick access to some critical shooting settings. Here’s how to use the control strip for viewfinder photography:
Display the Information screen.
You can do so by pressing the Info button.
Press thei button.
Photography
Flash Compensation settings on the Nikon D3300 are stated in terms of exposure value (EV) numbers. A setting of EV 0.0 indicates no flash adjustment; you can increase the flash power to EV +1.0 or decrease it to EV –3.0.
In the P, S, A, or M exposure modes, you have some control over flash power, even if you stick with the default, TTL (through the lens) automatic flash metering.
A fast shutter speed on your Nikon D3300 is the key to capturing a blur-free shot of a moving subject, whether it’s a flower in the breeze, a spinning Ferris wheel, or, as in the case of this figure, a racing cyclist.
Try these techniques to photograph a subject in motion:
Set the Mode dial to S (shutter-priority autoexposure).
Photography
The Nikon D3300 offers you many ways to get dynamic close-ups, even without special lenses. If you choose to invest in a macro lens or a set of diopters, you can get even better results. For great close-up shots, try these techniques:
Check your lens manual to find out its minimum close-focusing distance. How “up close and personal” you can get to your subject depends on your lens.
Photography
Providing specific settings for landscape photography with your Nikon D3300 is tricky because there’s no single best approach to capturing a beautiful stretch of countryside, a city skyline, or another vast subject.
Most people prefer using a wide-angle lens, for example, to incorporate a large area of the landscape into the scene, but if you’re far away from your subject, you may like the results you get from a telephoto or medium-angle lens.
Photography
The Flash mode on the Nikon D3300 determines how and when the flash fires. The next section introduces the various options; following that, you can find details on how to adjust the setting.
Your camera offers the following flash modes, represented in the Information and Live View displays by the symbols you see in the margins here.
Photography
If you’re experienced in the way of the flash, you can manually set flash output via the Flash Cntrl for Built-in Flash option on the Nikon D3300, found on the Shooting menu and featured in this figure.
Flash control for built-in flash
The normal setting is TTL (for automatic, through-the-lens metering), but if you select Manual, as shown on the right in the figure, and then press the Multi Selector right, you can access the power settings, which range from Full to 1/32 power.
Photography
If none of the standard White Balance on the Nikon D3300 settings does the trick and you don’t want to fool with fine-tuning them, take advantage of the PRE (Preset Manual) feature. This option enables you to base white balance on a direct measurement of the actual lighting conditions or to match white balance to an existing photo.
Photography
When you use the Nikon D3300’s built-in Raw processor, you can experiment with different Picture Control settings to see how each one affects the image. You have the same option when you use the free Nikon software, Nikon ViewNX, to process images. That program’s Raw converter, as well as those found in Adobe Photoshop and other third-party programs, offers additional ways to fine-tune color, contrast, and sharpness.
Photography
You can quickly reset all the options on the Nikon D3300’s Shooting menu by selecting Reset Shooting Options, as shown on the left in the figure. Likewise, the Setup menu also has a Reset Setup Options item to restore all settings on that menu, as shown on the right.
Choose the Reset option to return to the default settings for the respective menu.
Photography
You can set the image size and quality through the Nikon D3300’s settings menus. To sum up the Image Size and Image Quality information available to the Nikon D3300:
Both options affect picture quality and file size.
Choose a high Image Quality setting — Raw (NEF) or JPEG Fine — and the maximum Image Size setting (Large) for top-quality pictures and large file sizes.
You can view the current Flash mode in the Information and Live View displays on your Nikon D3300, as shown in the figure. (In Live View mode, press the Info button to cycle through the various data-display modes to get to the one shown in the figure.) The symbol shown in the figures represents the Auto flash mode.
By using the Nikon D3300’s Release mode setting, you tell the camera whether to capture a single image each time you press the shutter button; to record a burst of photos as long as you hold down the shutter button; or to use Self-Timer mode, which delays the image capture until a few seconds after you press the shutter button.
Photography
Still portrait means that your subject isn’t moving. When shooting a still portrait with your Nikon D3300, the classic portraiture approach is to keep the subject sharply focused while throwing the background into soft focus. This artistic choice emphasizes the subject and helps diminish the impact of any distracting background objects.
A basic picture-taking option to consider is whether you want to add flash to illuminate your subject. With the Nikon D3300, you can use the built-in flash or attach an external flash head to the hot shoe, labeled in the figure.
You can add light via the built-in flash or by attaching an external flash head to the hot shoe.
Pressing the Nikon D3300 Menu button gives you access to a slew of options in addition to those you control via the external buttons and dials. But what type of menu screens you see depends on the setting of the Mode dial:
Guide: Pressing the Menu button brings up the first screen of the guided menus, which provide a simple, walk-me-through-it approach to using the camera.
Photography
Your Nikon D3300 camera keeps track of the picture-taking settings and allows you to view them as you shoot. Your camera gives you the following ways to monitor the most important picture-taking settings:
Information screen (viewfinder photography): The left screen in the figure gives you a look at the Information screen available for viewfinder photography.
Photography
As the medium that stores your picture files, the Nikon D3300’s memory card is a critical component of your camera. Follow these Tips for buying and maintaining cards:
Buying cards: When you shop for an SD memory card, the one specification to note other than card capacity is card speed, which indicates how quickly data can be moved to and from the card (the read/write speed).
Ideally, you should always use the lowest ISO setting on your Nikon D3300 to ensure top image quality. As ISO increases, making the image sensor more reactive to light, you increase the risk of producing noise.
Noise is a defect that looks like sprinkles of sand and is similar in appearance to film grain, a defect that often mars pictures taken with high ISO film.
Pronounced “jay-peg,” this format is the default photo setting on your Nikon D3300, as it is on most digital cameras. JPEG is popular for two main reasons:
Immediate usability: All web browsers and e-mail programs can display JPEG files, so you can share pictures online immediately after you shoot them. You also can get a JPEG file printed at any retail photo outlet.
The Nikon D3300 allows you create a preset white balance based on an existing photo. Two words of caution are appropriate. First, basing white balance on an existing photo works only in strictly controlled lighting situations, where the color temperature of the lights is consistent from day to day.
Second, if you previously created a preset using the direct measurement option, you wipe out that preset when you base a preset on an existing photo.
The Nikon D3300 has 11 available autofocus points, which are indicated in the viewfinder by the markings labeled in this figure. Should you use one focus point or many? Here are some tips to help you out.
The AF-area mode setting determines which of the 11 autofocus points the camera uses to set the focusing distance.
The Nikon D3300 has various controls on the outside on the camera body. On the back of the Nikon D3300, shown in the figure, you find these features:
Infrared receiver: Labeled in the figure, this is one of two receivers that picks up the infrared signal from the optional ML-L3 wireless remote control. The other receiver is on the front-right side of the camera, near the middle of the hand grip.
With the D3300 camera, 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. The D3300 doesn’t skimp on power or performance, offering a great set of features to help you take your photography to the next level. But for novices, the camera also offers plenty of easy-to-use, automated modes.
Hidden under the covers on the left side of the Nikon D3300 are the following connection ports, labeled in the figure. Open the covers on the side of the camera to reveal these connections:
Accessory terminal: This terminal accepts the following accessories: Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter-release cable; WR-1 and WR-R10 wireless remote controllers; and GP-1/GP-1A GPS units.
Scattered across your Nikon D3300’s exterior are numerous controls that you use to change picture-taking settings, review your photos, and perform various other operations. Here is just a basic “what’s this thing do?” guide to each control.
Your virtual tour begins with the bird’s-eye view shown in the figure.
In the past, you had to choose between favoring the highlights or the shadows. But with the Nikon D3300, you can expand the possible tonal range — that’s photo-speak for the range of brightness values in an image — through the Active D-Lighting feature. It’s designed to give you a better chance of keeping your highlights intact while better exposing the darkest areas.
Photography
For shooting stationary subjects with your Nikon D3300, the fastest, most precise autofocus option is to pair the AF-S (single-servo) Focus mode with the Single Point AF-area mode. The symbols you see in the figure 5-10 represent these settings in the Information display.
Select these autofocus settings for stationary subjects.
High ISO settings on your Nikon D3300 can result in noise, the digital defect that gives your pictures a speckled look. (Refer to the figure.) Long exposure times (slow shutter speeds) also create a noise potential. To help solve these problems, your camera offers the Noise Reduction filter, found on the Shooting menu.
Whether you’re shooting stills or movies with your Nikon D3300, you control the camera’s Live View focusing performance through the same two settings as for viewfinder photography: Focus mode and AF-area mode. Again, the settings are different from those available for viewfinder photography, though.
You can view the current settings at the top of the screen in the default Live View display mode, Show Photo Information, as shown in the figure, as well as in Show Movie Information mode.
To autofocus on a moving subject with your Nikon D3300, select AF-C for the Focus mode and Dynamic Area for the AF-area mode. This figure shows the symbols that represent these settings in the Information display; you can select both options via the control strip. (Press the i button to access the strip.) You also can set the AF-area mode through the Shooting menu.
The first setting to consider is the exposure mode, which you select via the Mode dial, shown in the figure. Your choice determines how much control you have over two critical exposure settings — aperture and shutter speed — as well as many other options, including those related to color settings and flash photography.
Here’s a review of your focusing options available for viewfinder photography with your Nikon D3300; following that, you can get help with focusing during Live View photography and movie recording.
To many people, the word focus has just one interpretation when applied to a photograph: Either the subject is in focus or it’s blurry.
Like many dSLR cameras, the Nikon D3300 offers Live View, a feature that enables you to use the monitor instead of the viewfinder to compose photos. Turning on Live View is also the first step in recording a movie; using the viewfinder isn't possible when you shoot movies.
To shift to Live View mode, press the LV button.
Photography
For manual focusing with the Nikon D3300’s 18-55mm kit lens or a similarly featured Nikon lens, set the A/M switch on the lens to M. The camera automatically changes the Focus mode setting to MF (manual focus).
For other lenses, refer to the lens instruction manual to find out how to set the lens to manual focusing.
The Nikon D3300’s AF-area mode tells the camera what part of the frame contains your subject so that it can set the focusing distance correctly. For Live View photography and movie recording, the camera offers these settings:
Wide Area: In this mode, you use the Multi Selector to move a rectangular focusing frame around the screen to specify a focusing spot.
Photography
Video enthusiasts will appreciate the fact that the Nikon D3300 enables you to tweak a variety of movie-recording settings. But if you’re not up to sorting through those options, just use the default settings. (You can restore the critical defaults by opening the Shooting menu and choosing Reset Shooting Menu.
After unpacking your new Nikon D3300, you have to assemble a few parts. In addition to the camera body and the supplied battery (be sure to charge it before the first use), you need a lens and a memory card. Here’s what you need to know up front:
Lens: You can mount a wide range of lenses on your D3300, but some aren’t compatible with all camera features.
The Nikon D3300 can be used to take regular .jpg images which are compressed and saved. The other picture file type you can create is Camera Raw, or just Raw (as in uncooked), for short.
Each manufacturer has its own flavor of Raw. Nikon’s is NEF, for Nikon Electronic Format, so you see the three-letter extension NEF at the end of Raw filenames.
Photography
Your Nikon D3300 offers scads of options for customizing its performance. Other settings are related to actual picture taking, such as those that affect flash behavior and autofocusing. But there are a few options that you should consider from the get-go; all are found on the Setup menu.
To access this menu and other normal menus, set the Mode dial to any setting except Guide and then press the Menu button.
Because it depends on which lens you're using for your Nikon D3300, there are no full instructions here on its operation. But the following basics apply to most Nikon AF-S lenses as well as to certain other lenses that support autofocusing — you should explore the lens manual for specifics, of course:
Extending/retracting the lens: If you use the kit lens, press the button labeled Lens Unlock Switch in the figure while rotating the lens barrel to extend and retract the lens.
To display regular menus on the Nikon D3300, rotate the Mode dial to any setting but Guide and then press the Menu button. You then see a screen similar to the one shown in the figure. The icons along the left side of the screen represent the available menus.
The table labels the icons and includes a brief description of the goodies found on each menu.
The Nikon D3300 uses different focusing technologies depending on whether you’re using the viewfinder or taking advantage of Live View. The information here deals with viewfinder photography.
Two settings determine autofocusing behavior:
Focus mode: You can set the camera to lock focus when you press the shutter button halfway; to adjust focus continually up to the moment you depress the button fully to take the picture; or to decide for you which option is best.
The Image Size setting on your Nikon D3300 determines how many pixels are used to create your photo. Pixels are the square tiles from which digital images are made; you can see some pixels close up in the right image in the figure, which shows a greatly magnified view of the eye area in the left image.
Pixel is short for picture element.
Every camera manufacturer strives to ensure that your initial encounter with the camera is a happy one. To that end, the D3300’s default settings are designed to make it easy to take a good picture the first time you press the shutter button. The camera is set to the Auto exposure mode, which means that all you need to do is frame, focus, and shoot.
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