Nikon D5100 Experience: The Still Photographer's Guide to Operation and Image Creation with the Nikon D5100
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About this ebook
Nikon D5100 Experience is an e-book user's guide that goes beyond the D5100 manuals to help you learn when and why to use the various features, controls, and custom settings of this versatile camera. LEARN to use your D5100, quickly and competently, to create the types of images you want to capture. TAKE CONTROL of your camera, the image taking process, and the photos you create. What Readers are Saying about Nikon D5100 Experience: "This guide is very useful for beginners to experienced users. It is written in an understandable way by an experienced photographer who gives you the tips you need to create a beautiful picture - how to prepare your camera, create shortcuts, or activate such options to make you efficient in the field. I would recommend this e-book to every new Nikon D5100 buyer!" -Oliver "Great manual! This book made it much easier to operate my new Nikon D5100. It expands on the manual that comes with the camera and tells you what each setting is and what you should set it at. Highly recommended!" -GK "If you are new to DSLRs or want to bypass hours of hunting through manuals, this is great. There are many sensible real-world suggestions for configuring the camera that are very helpful, the author writes clearly and concisely, and his approach is accessible and friendly." -Jay M. GO BEYOND Auto and Program modes and learn to shoot in A mode and S mode. SECTIONS include Setting Up Your D5100, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority Modes, Auto Focusing Modes and AF Area Modes, Release Modes, Exposure Metering Modes, Histograms, Exposure Compensation, Bracketing, and White Balance, Composition, and an Introduction to Video Settings. THIS GUIDE to the Nikon D5100 is an illustrated document that builds upon the information found in the D5100 manuals, to help one begin to master their dSLR and learn to use the Nikon D5100 to its full capabilities!
Douglas Klostermann
Douglas Klostermann is a travel, culture, and humanitarian photographer, as well as the best-selling author of Full Stop photography guides including Nikon D850 Experience and Canon 5D Mark IV Experience. He has photographed for numerous organizations in the United States and Latin America, been recognized by the United Nations Development Programme for his humanitarian photography, and been published in magazines, books, and websites including Conde Nast Traveler, NationalGeographic.org, Sherman's Travel, South American Explorer, and Viva Travel Guides. Doug is a member of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). Learn more about photography techniques and equipment on his blog Picturing Change at blog.dojoklo.com and view his photography at dojoklo.com.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5La cámara es solo una herramienta. Pero para tomar fotos que usted pueda disfrutar, y eventualmente promocionar, se debe conocer bien la cámara. Este manual cumple ampliamente con las expectativas.
Book preview
Nikon D5100 Experience - Douglas Klostermann
Nikon D5100 Experience
The Still Photographer’s Guide to
Operation and Image Creation
with the Nikon D5100
By: Douglas J. Klostermann
Published by Douglas J. Klostermann and
Full Stop. good writing for better photography
Smashwords Edition
Version 2.0c - January 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4524-7264-5
Copyright 2011 Douglas J. Klostermann
All rights reserved. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold, distributed, file-shared, torrented, or given away. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or in print, without expressed permission from the author. Every effort has been made to make this e-book as accurate as possible, but no warranty of fitness is implied. The information is provided on an as-is basis. The author shall have no liability or responsibility with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information provided in this e-book including but not limited to the use of any of the materials or methods described, the products, retailers, Internet web sites, or links provided.
All contents including cover design, text, and photographs, with the exception of products, logos and content shown in Internet screenshots, are copyright by the author. All products, logos and content of screenshots are property of the respective companies and websites. Use of terms which are trademarks or service marks in this e-book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Cover design and photograph by the author.
Author’s website: www.dojoklo.com
Author’s blog: http://blog.dojoklo.com/
Full Stop. Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
http://www.dojoklo.com/Full_Stop/
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. MENUS and CUSTOM SETTINGS
2.1 Menu Settings – Playback, Shooting
2.2 Custom Settings
2.3 Menu Settings – Setup
2.4 My Menu
3. IMAGE FILE FORMATS
3.1 JPEG vs. NEF (RAW)
3.2 File Sizes and Maximum Burst Rate
4. CAMERA OPERATION INTRO
5. FOCUSING
5.1 Using Autofocus
5.2 Focus Modes
5.3 Autofocus Area Modes
5.4 Locking Focus
5.5 Focus Points and Image Composition
5.6 Live View and Movie Focusing
6. RELEASE MODES
7. EXPOSURE
7.1 Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO
7.2 Aperture-Priority Auto Mode and Shutter-Priority Auto Mode
7.3 Full Stops
7.4 Manual Exposure Mode (M)
8. METERING MODES
8.1 Matrix Metering
8.2 Center-Weighted Metering
8.3 Spot Metering
8.4 Manual Metering
8.5 Metering Modes and Exposure
8.6 Exposure Lock
9. ADDITIONAL CAMERA CONTROLS and FUNCTIONS
9.1 Histograms
9.2 Exposure Compensation
9.3 Auto Bracketing for Exposure
9.4 Active D-Lighting (ADL)
9.5 High Dynamic Range (HDR)
9.6 White Balance
9.7 Picture Controls
9.8 Flash
9.9 Sensor Cleaning
10. COMPOSITION
11. THE IMAGE TAKING PROCESS
12. VIDEO – AN INTRODUCTION
13. PHOTOGRAPHY ACCESSORIES
14. CONCLUSION
1. INTRODUCTION
The introduction of the Nikon D5100 brings forth a worthy successor to its popular predecessor, the D5000. By incorporating the high quality 16.2 megapixel sensor, great low-light performance, and full HD video of the pro-sumer D7000, the D5100 puts these advanced features in the hands of the dedicated enthusiast, plus includes a fully adjustable high resolution rotating LCD screen. With its 420 pixel RGB exposure metering sensor, accurate 11 point autofocus system, 4 frames per second continuous shooting speed, and easy to navigate information display, the D5100 offers the capability and features required for dedicated photographers who wish to continue to grow.
The Nikon D5100 is clearly an advanced digital SLR, and offers the potential to capture professional quality images in most any situation you wish to use it. But it is merely a tool.
Figure 1 –Detail of the Nikon D5100 digital SLR
It is up to you to make use of its features and capabilities to create the images you envision. Every button, menu item, and Custom Setting of the D5100 is there for a reason: to help you capture the images you want. Some of them are more useful to different types of photographers and shooting situations and you don’t need to learn and use them all immediately, but this guide should help to give you the knowledge to confidently use the ones that turn your Nikon D5100 into an image capturing tool that works best for you.
Learning to use and get the most out of a dSLR camera like the D5100 takes time, practice, patience, mistakes, and experimentation. If you are not yet familiar with all the controls of a dSLR and the exposure concepts of digital photography, don’t expect to just pick it all up at once, in one or two readings of a single book. (In fact, you wouldn’t want to, as the never ending journey of learning and mastering photography is a big part of what it’s all about!) Try not to become frustrated when you don’t quite understand something or aren’t yet getting the results you desire. Instead learn the controls, functions, settings, and concepts little by little, try them out in real life shooting situations, and return to this guide, the manual, and other photography books to address questions and problems you encounter. Continue to learn and to photograph often and it should all begin to come together, sometimes slowly and sometimes in rapid spurts of discovery and understanding.
If you have upgraded from an older dSLR to the D5100, its improved features and capabilities should more easily help you to capture high quality images that you may have been limited in consistently attaining before. If you are new to dSLR photography, you will soon find that using a more versatile camera such as the D5100 can be initially challenging but ultimately more rewarding by offering you more responsiveness and greater control over your shooting and your results. And don’t worry, this book will help guide you through its features, controls, and capabilities. Be sure to take it slowly and patiently and start with the basic features and concepts that I will explain. With practice and experience you will soon be shooting with confidence and can begin to take advantage of the camera’s more advanced functions.
Using This Guide
There are many different ways to use a digital SLR (dSLR) camera and its controls to capture images, and I’m not going to attempt to explain them all. I am going to concentrate on the ways that I believe are the most practical, useful, and effective. The settings and techniques I discuss apply to many types of general photography, including most travel photography. I will point out other options for users who might wish to work differently and I encourage you to experiment and find the techniques that work best and are most comfortable or intuitive for you. If you typically shoot very specifically, say macro photography or studio photography with complex lighting, some of what I discuss may not apply. But if you are that specialized, I’m sure you are skilled enough to know when and how to adapt what I say!
Since this guide is intended to help you get the most out of your D5100, I will not go into detail about all of the automatic features or Auto and Scene Modes. The D5100 is a sophisticated tool that deserves to be used to its full potential, and that involves taking control of the camera and its functions, which means taking it off Auto, off Program, off automatically selected auto-focus points, off Auto ISO. While this may be more challenging at first, these are the techniques that are necessary to take full advantage of the capabilities of any dSLR including the D5100, and will lead you to having more control and consistency over your image making. Hopefully this will inevitably lead to better images!
As you have probably discovered by now, the camera’s User’s Manual is brief and basic. There is a more detailed Reference Manual on the Reference CD included with your camera. Nikon D5100 Experience will expand on the two manuals and explain not only the features, controls, and menus of the D5100, but more importantly when and why you might want to use them in your photography. However, this guide is not intended to completely replace the manuals, but to be used in conjunction with them, so every bit of information in those manuals will not be repeated here. Among the official manuals’ often brief descriptions and sometimes frustratingly incomplete explanations, there is some very valuable information, as well as the basics for buttons, controls, and how to change all the settings. Note that the D5100 Reference Manual can also be obtained as a PDF file from the Nikon website:
http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17325
This guide is intended to be used with the camera in your hands. That is the best way to directly see and understand what is being explained. As you can see, there is a lot to make sense of regarding terminology and controls, so I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the controls and displays of the camera body, as shown on pages