Nikon D3300 For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Nikon D5000 For Dummies

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. To help you get started using your camera, here’s a handy reference to your camera’s buttons, dials, and exposure modes.

Controls on your Nikon D3300 digital camera

If you’re not familiar with the Nikon D3300, here’s a quick guide to its buttons, dials, and other external controls. The lens shown here is the 18–55mm kit lens; other lenses may have different features.

Automatic exposure modes on your Nikon D3300 camera

For photography novices, the Nikon D3300 offers automatic settings that enable point-and-shoot simplicity. The settings listed here help you capture the most common types of subjects; just set the Mode dial to the icon shown in the table. For automatic photography using special effects, set the dial to Effects and rotate the Command dial to select an effect. You can also add effects when shooting movies.

Advanced exposure modes for your Nikon D3300 camera

To really take creative control over your Nikon D3300, step up to one of these exposure modes, which enable you to adjust aperture (f-stop) to manipulate depth of field (the distance over which focus appears sharp) and to adjust shutter speed, which determines whether moving objects appear sharply focused or blurry. You also gain access to some features not available in the fully automatic modes, such as the option to adjust flash power and tweak color.

About This Article

About the book author:

Julie Adair King is a veteran digital photography educator. Her best selling books include Digital Photography For Dummies and thirty titles on Canon and Nikon cameras.