Nikon D40X question

[Kawi_T]

Hi. I'm a total newbie and really don't know too much. So last week I got my D40X. I know a lot of people here don't care for it but its a learner for me. If my interest grows I'll consider something else. Anyway, I've been playing around with the options and features and trying to learn how to use this thing. Now I did something and I don't know how to undo it. When I view my pics on the screen all the blacks in the pic are flashing white. I was trying to use all kinds of different features to see what they did. Now I don't know what I did and don't know how to make it go away. Any ideas? I know it sounds dumb but i don't know what the heck i'm doing. Thanks.
Tom

 

[m1a1fan]

Look in your manual. You should be able to find a way to reset your camera to factory default settings. From what you said above, it sounds like you are viewing the "highlights" when reviewing your pictures.

Good luck with your new camera. Whether or not people here like it or not is not the issue. It's a great camera to learn with and if the photography bug bites you a bit harder you'll know when and why to upgrade. The one major issue with the D40 / 40X is the fact that you are a bit limited in the lenses you can use.

Do yourself a favor though. Invest in a tripod and remote shutter release.

 

[sabbath999]

When viewing the picture, hit the multi-selector (the arrow ring that is around your OK button with your thumb)... it will scroll though your picture info, your histogram and that "highlights" screen (which is actually showing which highlights are blown out).

As simple as this sounds, the same thing stumped me for a week.

 

[sabbath999]

Look in your manual. You should be able to find a way to reset your camera to factory default settings.

How to fix this is not in the D40 manual (I don't have an X) as far as I can tell, and I have read it from cover to cover several times. Restoring the camera to the default settings doesn't fix it either.

 

[Kawi_T]

When viewing the picture, hit the multi-selector (the arrow ring that is around your OK button with your thumb)... it will scroll though your picture info, your histogram and that "highlights" screen (which is actually showing which highlights are blown out).

As simple as this sounds, the same thing stumped me for a week.

Yep, that fixed it. Thanks for the help. So far I've only read the manual enough to get me shooting. Like all of us, I'd rather spend my time taking pics than reading the manual. Probably not a good strategy for taking quality pics though. So far I haven't taken anything worth showing anyone. One thing kind of has me stumped though. I've been taking some pics of my mom's and my uncle's houses with their Christmas decorations up. They are actually coming out pretty nice. I'm bothered by one particular pic though. Its of my uncle's house at night with all his lights lit up. When I took it, it looked great on the screen of my camera. It looked really sharp and the lights at night showed up really well. My uncle liked it very much too and asked me to put it on the computer so we could look at it on the bigger screen and maybe do something with it. However when we loaded it onto the computer it is WAY out of focus. I'm stumped as to why it looked so good on the camera but so out of focus on the computer.
Tom

 

[JenR]

When you see a photo on the LCD screen it is TINY. You really can't tell how sharp an image is until you get a better look at the larger image on a computer screen. The image is the same, but your perception of "sharpness" is different when looking at the larger image.

 

[Bevel Heaven]

you *really* need to go pick yourself up a DVD MAGIC LANTERN DVD GUIDES makes it, get "NIKON D40" DVD, you will learn a bunch from it, I highly recommend it. THey make DVDs for all NIKON cameras........

 

[JIP]

You do want to know though it is not the blacks in the pictures that are flashing. Your highlights will flash in the areas that are blown out. This is a good tool to tell you when an area of your image is over-exposed.