Initial Hardware Considerations for New Users
Contents
1. The Lens release button is the big D shaped button to the right of the lens mount Refer to the Control Location Reference section in chapter one of this book for button locations The steps to remove a lens are discussed next Removing the Lens Here are the steps use to remove and change a lens quickly without dropping the camera or lens Try this method and see if it works for you see FIGURE 2D If not simply invent your own way of holding the camera while changing lenses FIGURE 2D Removing the lens from the camera 1 Hold the camera body in your left hand with your fingers reaching around the front You ll be grasping it on the side that has no grip and your fingers will cover the rubber Connector cover on the end Your middle finger will naturally fall over the Lens release button 2 Press the grip side of the camera into your body to stabilize it The camera s rear Monitor will be facing the left side of your body and the palm of your left hand 3 Press and hold the Lens release button with the middle finger of your left hand 4 Using your right hand turn the lens clockwise until it stops then pull it straight out of the camera body If you re a left handed person this method will still work Our cameras are designed for right handed people so a lefty may find this awkward the first few times suggest you keep trying to learn it since this method allows you to hold the camera and lens very securely2. top of the lens for a focal length position In between the numbers are other focal lengths Let s say you turned the lens to halfway between 16 and 24mm That is about 20mm as expected It s constantly variable as you turn the zoom ring 10 Focus Ring The Focus ring is not often used on a camera with autofocus which is why it s so small However for things like close up macro shots it is sometimes easier to turn off the autofocus and focus manually so that you can control exactly where you want to place the sharpest point of focus Study the section M A M switch 3 before you use the Focus ring On some lenses the zoom and focus rings are reversed M A M Switch Many Nikkor lenses have an M A M switch on the side If you have a lens with a switch labeled M A M it is safe to allow the camera to focus and then fine tune the focus with the Focus ring The M A setting is called autofocus with manual override manual priority by Nikon while the M setting is simply called manual mode On some Nikon lenses you may find an A M switch instead of the M A M switch These lenses may or may not allow you to fine tune the autofocus when in the A mode Lower cost lenses usually won t while some of the very expensive Nikkors will allow manual override in autofocus mode The way to be sure is to carefully attempt to turn the Focus ring and if you feel resistance stop immediately Basically the M A setting causes the c
3. turned off while attaching or removing lenses I ve never damaged a camera s electronics by leaving it on during lens changes but there s always a first time Sometimes in the heat of shooting and quickly changing lenses forget and just change it with the camera on so it s probably not too dangerous However may just have been fortunate don t recommend that you take chances with an expensive camera or lens Now let s remove the caps and prepare to attach the lens to the camera Caps Removed FIGURE 2B Caps have been removed To remove the camera s body cap press and hold the Lens Release button and turn the body cap clockwise until it stops then pull the cap straight out It uses a bayonet mount with three ears just like a lens The lens cap is similar in that you grasp the lens and turn the lens cap to the right and then pull it off Dust is bad Blow away any dust you see on the front of the camera or on the rear of the lens so it won t get inside the camera body and end up on the sensor Dust can cause a spot on your pictures if it gets on the sensor so always change lenses in a dust free area when possible Attaching the Lens It isn t hard to attach the lens to the camera and when you ve done it once you ll have no problems in the future So let s mount the lens It attaches to the camera using a Nikon F bayonet style mount that s been in production for over 50 years Nearly any lens e
4. when you insert or remove a battery pack In the picture in FIGURE 1B the Battery chamber cover on the bottom of the camera s grip is open and the battery is partially inserted in the correct orientation Push it all the way in and close the small battery cover SETUP MENU Battery info Language nl y Auto image rotation Charge tt No of shots E Image comment Battery age E Copyright information 0 4 Save load settings D GPS FIGURE 1C Battery info screen series in the Setup Menu Please use only a Nikon brand EN EL15 battery pack in your camera This particular battery has a special circuit that talks to the camera and enables the Battery age scale shown on the Battery info screen FIGURE 1C It tells you when a battery has outlived its usefulness and should be disposed of going beyond just telling you when it s low on power In FIGURE 1C you can see a picture of the Battery info screen Notice that it shows the Charge which gives you the amount of voltage charge or power the battery has left as a percent value The No of shots shows the number of images taken since this battery was last charged and inserted Finally the Battery age scale tells about the life of the battery and whether it needs to be replaced It uses a scale of 0 4 or five steps of life Once again this scale has nothing to do with the amount of power that the battery currently contains It shows how much useful ife the battery has left until
5. Initial Hardware Considerations Chapter 1 Supplement to Mastering the Nikon 800 This supplemental information is intended for readers of Mastering the Nikon D800 only It is a downloadable resource for Chapter 1 Camera Setup and Control Reference Please do not distribute this extra material to anyone other than a legitimate owner of the book Mastering the Nikon D800 is available at the following website http www rockynook com book 0 239 mastering the nikon d800 html Darrell Young Mastering the Nikon D800 Copyright 2012 Darrell Young All Rights Reserved If you are like me you ll open your camera s box attach the lens insert the battery and take your first picture Wouldn t it be a better idea to wait an hour to charge the battery and only then take the first picture Sure it would but I ve never done that and bet you won t either Nikon knows this and doesn t send out new cameras with dead batteries Most of the time the battery is not fully charged but it has enough power to set the time and date then take and review a few pictures Think about it How would you test a brand new battery You d charge it and see if it will hold a charge Do you think Nikon is in the habit of sending out batteries that are untested No So most of the time you can play with your new camera for at least a few minutes before charging the battery I ve purchased nearly every DSLR Nikon has made since 2002 and not one of them h
6. amera to autofocus for you but you can fine tune the focus manually The M setting is completely manual focus and you are responsible for all focus operations VR On Off Switch VR stands for vibration reduction Lenses with the VR moniker are able to compensate for small shaky movements while pictures are being taken handheld potentially resulting in much sharper images They have a special lens element that moves to compensate for small camera movements don t mean you can wave your camera around like a fire hose and still get sharp images What mean is that the lens will try to compensate for natural hand shakiness It allows you to use slower shutter speeds and still get sharp images According to how shaky you are while handholding you may take pictures with shutter speeds up to three or four stops slower depending on the individual lens s VR type There are two types of VR lenses on the market currently VR and VR II The more advanced form of VR called VR II has algorithms that notice when the camera is very still and disable VR Why use vibration reduction when the camera isn t vibrating What about using VR on a tripod Nikon says you should be okay when shooting on a tripod with VR II turned on However always flip the switch to off anyway unless I m using a shaky tripod The older style VR can cause some seriously weird effects when the 11 camera is on a stable tripod Check the specs of any new lens you
7. and a Secure Digital or Secure Digital High Capacity card SD SDHC and SDXC FIGURE 4 shows how to insert the memory cards 12 FIGURE 4 Inserting memory card s To open the Memory card slot cover you pull the cover toward you until it pops open If you try to plug in the memory cards backwards or upside down they will not insert properly There is only one way the memory cards can be fully inserted as shown in figure 4 You can see that have both memory cards inserted in FIGURE 4 Neither are fully inserted into the camera in the reference picture The blue 32GB card is an SDHC card and the red 32GB card is a CF card Press your memory card s all the way in with their labels facing in the same direction as you see in FIGURE 4 Now format the cards to make them work best with the camera See page 289 in the book for detailed information on how to format memory cards
8. as come with a dead battery When my latest camera arrived the battery was about 40 percent charged used the camera for an hour or two before charged the battery However let me mention one important thing If you insert the battery and its charge is very low such as below 25 percent it might be a good idea to go ahead and charge it before shooting and reviewing lots of pictures You may be able to set the time and date and test the camera a time or two but go no further with a seriously low battery Nikon BATTERY CHARGER MH 25 FIGURE 1A Preparing to charge the camera s battery Included in the box with the camera is the Nikon Quick Charger MH 25 The battery will only fit into the charger in one direction as shown in FIGURE 1A where the battery is only partially inserted To charge it you will need to press the battery all the way into the charger so that it mates with the four gold colored charging pins shown at the left bottom of the charger FIGURE 1A An orange indicator light on the charger will blink until the battery is fully charged When the blinking stops and the light stays solid orange the battery is ready for use The camera uses a lithium ion Li ion battery pack While this type of battery doesn t develop the memory effects of the old nickel cadmium NiCad batteries from years past there can be a problem if you let them get too low A Li ion battery should not be used to complete exhaustion It ha
9. buy to determine if it has standard VR or VR Il VR Il adds an additional stop of vibration reduction so you could handhold up to four stops slower instead of three VR Il is found on the more pricey lenses in the Nikkor lineup An easy way to tell if you have VR or VR Il is by how many extra slow stops you get If the lens s sales literature says three stops it is VR If four stops it is VR ll 5 Normal Active Switch This setting is designed to allow your lens to compensate for different types of vibration when using the VR mode It is primarily designed to allow you to shoot sharper images from a moving vehicle So any time you are in some way moving rapidly and want to take pictures use the Active setting The Normal setting is for everyday handheld images Here s a paragraph from a Nikon website describing why they created the Normal Active lens setting The frequency of camera shake experienced during regular handheld shooting is different from that encountered when trying to shoot from a moving vehicle or vessel We designed the VR function to be able to compensate for severe vibrations encountered when you re in a car on a train or airplane and even aboard a helicopter Found at http imaging nikon com Note On some lenses the Zoom and Focus rings are reversed Many lenses have the Focus ring near the front of the lens instead of near the camera body Using Memory Cards The D800 uses both a Compact Flash CF
10. s a special protection circuit that will disable the battery if one of the cells goes below a certain key voltage You d probably have to run it all the way down and then store it in the camera for a few weeks to actually cause the battery to disable itself However a good rule of thumb is this When your camera s Li ion battery gets down to the 25 percent level please recharge it don t let mine go below 50 percent for any extended use If you can hold yourself back from turning on the camera until after the battery is charged that would be the optimum situation That ll give you some time to read more of this chapter and even check out the User s Manual Nikon M EN ELIS 7 T V 1900mAh 14Wh E a SEDNO Gee Cee MPi A ie argh UN Feta A ah nia an i a tr iik LANA LLN EF AR Londi A aS 701 10829000587 FIGURE 1B Examining and inserting the battery FIGURE 1B shows how to insert the battery into your camera On the left side of the image you can see the battery from the top and bottom Notice that you insert the battery with the rounded side up and the flat side down Below 4 the word Nikon on the battery s rounded top is a small arrowhead Insert the battery in the direction of the little arrow as shown in FIGURE 1B There is a little yellow clip in the battery chamber that helps hold the battery in place when the Battery chamber cover is open You can move the little clip with a finger to get it out of the way
11. ver made for a Nikon film SLR or DSLR will mount on your camera The exception is non Al manual focus lenses from the late 1960s and early 1970s This type of lens can damage the camera s meter coupling lever You are safe with virtually all Nikkor manual focus Al and Al S lenses plus the Nikkor autofocus AF and AF S lenses Let s consider how to mount an AF S Nikkor 16 85mm lens amera step by step Notice in FIGURE 2C image 1 how the lens has a white dot A that must line up exactly with a corresponding white dot B on the camera body The lens must be inserted into the front of the camera until the two dots are close together as in FIGURE 2C image 2 Once the lens is full inserted into the bayonet mount and the dots are lined up slowly turn the lens counterclockwise rotate left until the white dot on the lens is under the K of the Nikon logo on the front top of the camera The dot on the lens will then be straight up and just below the Nikon logo as in FIGURE 2C image 3 Do not force the lens to turn If it doesn t turn easily to the left make sure that you ve fully inserted the lens into the body before you start turning it toward the locking position When you get the lens s white dot in the up position A is up you ll hear an audible snap as the lens locks to the body To remove the lens in the future hold in the Lens release button turn the lens clockwise until it stops and then pull it straight out
12. while making lens changes It would be a shame to drop and break either the lens or camera body Don t ask me why mentioned this If this list of steps doesn t work for you just set the camera down press and hold the Lens release button rotate the lens to the right and pull it out of the body Lens Controls While examining the lens for later use you ll notice several controls that you ll need to use see FIGURE 3 Many AF S Nikkor lenses and even aftermarket lenses have similar controls although the names might vary slightly FIGURE 3 Lens zoom ring focus ring and switches FIGURE 3 shows the five numbered controls that we ll discuss in our list 1 Zoom Ring This ring is the most used control on the lens You ll use it constantly to zoom in and out from the widest to the longest focal length and any point in between On this lens the 16mm setting is a wide angle setting which allows you to take group portraits or get sweeping landscape shots The 85mm setting is a short telephoto position Use the 85mm setting to pull a subject closer and fill the image frame You can use the Zoom ring to select the exact focal length that you need to make the best image composition As you turn the Zoom ring you ll see the numbers turn with it The numbers shown on the lens in FIGURE 3 are 16 24 35 50 70 and 85 Each represents a focal length in millimeters mm Place any number from 16 to 85 next to the white dot on
13. you need to recycle it and buy a new one My Recommendation A genuine new Nikon EN EL15 battery for the D800 is usually less than 75 USD when purchased online Why buy a cheap aftermarket battery made who knows where and use it to power the circuits of your expensive camera How can you be sure that a cheap non Nikon battery even has the correct circuit for Battery info communication How can you know that the cheap cells won t short circuit and burn your camera to a cinder Li ion cells are a bit finicky and require careful manufacture and charging control Personally lIl only trust the real thing a Nikon brand EN EL15 battery to power my expensive camera Attaching and Removing a Lens Just in case this is your first DSLR camera I m going to include a few pictures that show how to attach a lens It seems hard the first time you do it but after that it s quite easy One of the powerful things a DSLR like the D800 can do is use a variety of lenses to achieve various subject looks or perspectives If you ve never put a lens on a DSLR before today please read this carefully so that you won t damage the lens or camera body FIGURE 2A Remove the lens and body caps There are usually a body cap and a lens cap that must be removed before you mount a lens to the camera body In FIGURE 2A you see the D800 camera and an AF S Nikkor 50mm f 1 4G lens but with both caps still attached see red arrows Leave the camera
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