Introduction
Walk into any bookseller, go to the photography section, and you will see countless books on
the subject of photography. Look a little further and you will locate the camera-specifi c books.
It is this divide between the camera-specifi c and instructional photography books that inspired
me to write this book. What I was seeing in the store was a lot of books that were just sort
of missing the mark—especially when it came to using a specifi c brand and model of camera
along with actual photographic instruction. So with that, I set about to write this book on the
Nikon D5000, not as a rehash of the owner’s manual but as a resource to teach photography
with the wonderful technology present in the D5000. I have put together a short Q&A to help
you get a better understanding of just what it is that you can expect from this book.
Q: IS EVERY CAMERA FEATURE GOING TO BE COVERED?
A: Nope, just the ones I felt you need to know about in order to start taking great photos.
Believe it or not, you already own a great resource that covers every feature of your camera:
the owner’s manual. Writing a book that just repeats this information would have been a
waste of my time and your money. What I did want to write about was how to harness cer-
tain camera features to the benefi t of your photography. As you read through the book, you
will also see callouts that point you to specifi c pages in your owner’s manual that are related
to the topic being discussed. For example, in Chapter 6 I discuss the use of the AE-L button
but there is more information available on this feature in the manual. I cover the function
that applies to our specifi c needs, but I also give you the page numbers in the manual to
explore this function even further.
Q: SO IF I ALREADY OWN THE MANUAL, WHY DO I NEED THIS BOOK?
A: The manual does a pretty good job of telling you how to use a feature or turn it on in the
menus, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you why and when you should use it. If you really want
to improve your photography, you need to know the whys and whens to put all of those great
camera features to use at the right time. To that extent, the manual just isn’t going to cut it.
It is, however, a great resource on the camera’s features, and it is for that reason that I treat it
like a companion to this book. You already own it, so why not get something of value from it?
Q: WHAT CAN I EXPECT TO LEARN FROM THIS BOOK?
A: Hopefully, you will learn how to take great photographs. My goal, and the reason the
book is laid out the way it is, is to guide you through the basics of photography as they relate
to different situations and scenarios. By using the features of your D5000 and this book, you
will learn about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lens selection, depth of fi eld, and many other
photographic concepts. You will also fi nd plenty of large full-page photos that include cap-
tions, shooting data, and callouts so you can see how all of the photography fundamentals
come together to make great images. All the while, you will be learning how your camera
works and how to apply its functions and features to your photography.
x NIKON D5000: FROM SNAPSHOTS TO GREAT SHOTS
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