Nikon D3200 Turning Out To Be Expensive Point-And-Shoot

[kundalini]

....I went out shooting today in my back yard. The photos I took on auto setting were beautiful, perfect. The ones on manual setting were either orange, stark white or jet black. I am so frustrated I am ready to chuck the whole thing and go back to my Elph! I had hoped to shoot a minor-league baseball game I'm attending September 6th, but I'm starting to think I'd be just as well off taking my Elph, rather than lugging this camera and the various lenses and filters with me.

Any help or encouragement would be SO appreciated!

Set the camera in Program Auto shooting mode (page 54 of your owners manual). Take a picture of something that is not moving. Look at the data from the image file. Set the camera in Aperture-Priority Auto shooting mode (page 56 of your owners manual). Set the aperture to the same f/stop as the Programmed Auto setting chose. If the lighting hasn't changed, you should be close, if not spot on, with the same exposure as programm mode. Season to taste. By that I mean to open or stop down the lens aperture or add / subtract the exposure compensation to what you want to see in the final result.

 

[DarkShadow]

For get the Elph no comparison in dynamic range or ISO to a Nikon D3200 not to count the glass you can add on. Don't give up before the rewards come. Rome was not built in a day was it.

 

[Railphotog]

What is it with people and adjustable cameras? They quite often think that twirling this dial and moving/adjusting that will allow them to take photos. All the time not having a clue what they are doing. If the Auto or Program setting works, then why deviate when you don't have a clue what your "adjustments" are doing? I think many think because there are so many options available on modern cameras that they actually need to fiddle with them. Did the OP have dials and adjustments with her Elph? There is no shame in using auto modes. Use them and experiment, find out what sort of things you can do with them first.

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

I did try the Guide Mode, but I was missing shots reading - so I gathered together a lot of camera books (including Nikon D3200 For Dummies) and tried to learn it that way. Maybe I should give Guide Mode another shot, because when I am shooting in the real world, I am getting nowhere.

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

Thank you for those links, KmH!

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

Yes, I was in "M" setting, trying to set everything up the way I thought it was supposed to be for the conditions I was shooting under. HUGE fail. Then I went out this morning on a morning walk with my husband and my dogs - beautiful pics as long as I was in Auto mode or one of the "scene" modes (like landscape, action, etc). As soon as I tried A mode (which I was shooting with a week ago, with some success) the pictures were awful and I deleted them immediately. This is getting so frustrating - but I guess shooting in one of the scene modes is better than just straight Auto mode? Ugh!

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

Why not just keep it in auto mode, then?

I mean, the only other option is to learn what all the other settings do, and then employ that knowledge into taking quality pictures. If you don't understand it now then keep learning...Charlie Parker didn't get awesome at the sax the day after he picked it up.

My dad was a jazz musician, so I really like this analogy! I will keep learning and stop trying to build Rome in a day I guess :/

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

I am not sure how to post pictures to this forum (I am SUCH a noob, I'm sorry)! Here are some I took this morning:




The one with my husband's head cut off was taken on the "action" setting. The second one was taken on the "kids" setting. The one of the water tower was taken using the "landscape" setting. The last one was taken on auto. All using my 50mm - 300mm Nikkor lens, and all shot on JPEG Fine (medium size).

I have shot in RAW mode and I am pretty adept at Photoshop, so I have been able to fix some mistakes I've made. I find the RAW setting awfully cumbersome and I don't want to have to edit my mistakes with Photoshop. I know I need to work on composition etc but that is a whole 'nother ballgame - I need to get the basic settings down before I worry about that. So any advice/critique would be very much appreciated. Thanks everybody!

 

[kundalini]

Perhaps you've set something in the menus that is the culprit. It's too easy to forget adjustments made in the menus, I've certainly done it more than once. Start from square one and reset your camera settings to the factory default. The explaination and steps should be in your owners manual. Then try again with the manual settings with the little excercise I mentioned earlier with one shot in Auto, then one with you setting the exposure to the Auto data while in the Manual shooting mode.

 

[Braineack]

instead of deleting the images you should look at the data and figure out why they are so bad.

 

[TamiAz]

You just need to keep practicing and get to know how all the settings work on your camera. When I first started learning to shoot in manual it took a good 3 months of reading and practicing before everything clicked. I never realized how hard photography was until I started shooting in manual, but it's so worth it when it finally clicks!! Keep working at it.

 

[Tailgunner]

Yes, I was in "M" setting, trying to set everything up the way I thought it was supposed to be for the conditions I was shooting under. HUGE fail. Then I went out this morning on a morning walk with my husband and my dogs - beautiful pics as long as I was in Auto mode or one of the "scene" modes (like landscape, action, etc). As soon as I tried A mode (which I was shooting with a week ago, with some success) the pictures were awful and I deleted them immediately. This is getting so frustrating - but I guess shooting in one of the scene modes is better than just straight Auto mode? Ugh!

Are you shooting in Auto ISO or Manual ISO?

I personally started out shooting with the ISO in Auto when I first made the switch to shooting in Manual mode. Then I would flip the dial back and forth between Manual and Auto mode to see what the camera thought the settings should be. I would then flip back to Manual mode, make the same adjustments, an take the shot. I would do this on several different subjects through out the day for a week or two until I finally got a basic idea of what Shutter Speed and F-Stop I needed to use in order to make a decent photo. After that, I started experimenting on my own adjusting the Shutter time and F-Stop ever so slightly learning to fine tune my shots....I actually got lost and had to start over switching back and forth on Manual and Auto mode comparing settings again lol It wasn't too much longer after that when I finally felt confident that I could produce a decent photo on my own and then turn my attention towards learning manual ISO.

Warning, it was at this point when I out grew my D3100 and needed a camera with easier controls. That's one of the main reasons I bought my D7100, it's a lot easier adjusting Shutter speed, F-Stop, and ISO on the fly than adjusting those things on my D3100.

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

Perhaps you've set something in the menus that is the culprit. It's too easy to forget adjustments made in the menus, I've certainly done it more than once. Start from square one and reset your camera settings to the factory default. The explaination and steps should be in your owners manual. Then try again with the manual settings with the little excercise I mentioned earlier with one shot in Auto, then one with you setting the exposure to the Auto data while in the Manual shooting mode.

I think you're absolutely correct, so I set this back to factory default (which involves two different settings). Then I re-set the image to JPEG Fine Medium because I like working with images at that setting. The rest of it is all default.

I've had to walk away from this for just a bit - I'm so frustrated I'm getting teary-eyed (hahaha I bet I'm not the first "photographer" to do that) and I think I will be okay for the baseball game September 6th. I'm going to put it on the "Action" setting and shoot away. I did that the last time I attended a baseball game and got some pretty good shots (no credit to me, it was all the camera's doing).

Thanks for all your help!

 

[StarsFellOnIndiana]

You just need to keep practicing and get to know how all the settings work on your camera. When I first started learning to shoot in manual it took a good 3 months of reading and practicing before everything clicked. I never realized how hard photography was until I started shooting in manual, but it's so worth it when it finally clicks!! Keep working at it.

Thanks so much for the encouragement! I so love taking pictures (especially of my two sled dogs) I am determined to keep going no matter how frustrated I get. I have been studying EXIF data especially on the clunkers I've taken to try to figure out exactly where I went wrong.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

In the viewfinder in manual mode the display will tell you if and how much the current settings will over/under expose the shot. I was using that today on my D90 and playing with bumping up and down via both shutter and aperture. Used the matrix metering if that matters. I'm just getting to understand digital as well after years of film.

Hope that helps.