Nikon D3300 Settings question

Manderga

New member
I work at a used car lot and am taking pictures of the cars with a NikonD3300. I know nothing about settings and am a newbie to photography. Whatever my camera is set on the trims on the cars come our blurry and fuzzy. Im just using the lense that came with the camera. The lense says AF-SNIKKOR 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 G II. The files are too big for me to attach for an example.
The over all pics of the cars seems ok. Can someone please advise about the best settings I should use? THANKS!!!!
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.

Do you have your manual. If so, read it, if not you can download it from Nikon. Also you might want to consider the The David Busch Nikon D3300 Guide to Digital SLR Photography. All of his books are excellent. Also you might try a google search for D3300 settings.
 

nickt

Senior Member
Without a sample we are just guessing. Since you say part of the car looks good, I'll rule out that your shutter speed is too slow. My next guess would be that you or the camera chose a low f stop. That will give a shallow depth of field. What that means is part of the car would be in focus but parts more near or far from the camera are out of focus while the center parts are focused. With this in might I would suggest Auto mode and good light. Take pictures on a bright day if possible and back up some and use more zoom to make up the distance. Try to be more square to the side of the car so most parts are equally far from the camera.
No one here normally recommends Auto mode, but if you have a job to do, that might be the quickest solution. You really should learn about exposure principals: the relationship between shutter, aperture and iso.
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
A cheap tripod makes a big difference for sharp photos, especially for lenses that dont have VR, (vibration reduction).
It is difficult suggesting camera settings since they can change day by day, even shooting the same thing.
I am going to assume you have the focus and shutter release still set with as the same button, (factory setting). Be sure to hold the shutter release button down half way to attain focus then push it all the way to actuate the shutter to take the picture. Its important to hold still, any movement while the shutter is actuated will cause blur. I also assume your shooting in the green "auto" mode. You aren't really allowed to adjust any settings in that mode. If you want to continue shooting in that mode, stand about 10-20 feet away from the car, put the red focus box you see in the view finder somewhere in the middle of the car(not on glass) and shoot away at different zooms from different angles, even try to use the pop up flash. Just hold still when your taking the picture.
If your feeling froggy, turn the dial on top of the camera to "A" for aperture priority. This is a setting to adjust the lens "pupil", just like an eye. The larger the pupil(smaller the f number) the better the lens can see in low light. But this also reduces the depth of field, that is the area of the photo that is acceptably sharp. Try turning the thumb wheel to adjust the aperture to something like f8. This tells the camera you want f8 and allows the camera to figure out the shutter speed and ISO for proper exposure. If after a shot is taken and you are not happy with it, make another adjustment and take another shot. See that different apertures provide different results. Further, you can also hold the exposure compensation button down with your right finger and turn the wheel to the right for brighter exposure or to the left for darker exposure. Just dont forget to put the exposure compensation back to neutral when done.

I hope this helps.
Sometimes, its best to get a little info as a starting point and experiment from there. Do not be afraid to take a bunch of shots and delete the ones that suck. Just don't take a bunch of bad shots without making some sort of adjustment, lol!
 
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