Really need help with my Nikon D40

[Brendicat]

Hello. My name is Brenda and I am new. I'm not sure where to post this, so if I am in the wrong place, please tell me where I shuld be posting. Thank you.

I bought a Nikon D40 from a friend b/c I wanted a better camera than I had. I have been playing with it for about 8 months now and have managed to screw it up. I am going to be asking alot of stupid questions, so please be forwarnd.

I don't understand aperture. I have tried to change it so that I could shoot in different lighting, but now have messed it up so bad everything is always dark (unless I'm in auto mode). What setting should I have it at for 'normal' light.

I also want to take shots where either something inthe forfront is clear and the rest blurry or the forfront is blurry and the background is clear.

And my last question for now is Can I change the resolutionof my pictures and if so how?

[teaking]

Most of the things in your post relate to aperture, and it is basically the width of opening that lets the light in. The term used to describe the effect of shallow focus and wide focus is depth of field or DOF.

The aperture is used to control the light entering the sensor from the lens by increasing or decreasing the diameter of its opening and is measured in f-stops thats what the F numbers are on your camera. I have linked to some videos on "meet the gimp" its a tutorial site for a photo editor but at the end of the videos he talks about camera's and photography and is very interesting I thought it may help you understand.

aperture: Meet the GIMP » Blog Archive » Episode 131: Automatic?

DOF: Meet the GIMP » Blog Archive » Episode 130: Getting the Bugs out

[Nicole]

Just moved this over to the Nikon section for you since in the end you might want some Nikon specific advice for how to change settings.

Another helpful link is Learning about Exposure – The Exposure Triangle . This article talks about how ISO, aperture, and shutter speed all work together on how dark or light your photos are and how they impact your photos.

To take pictures where your subject is clear, you need a large aperture. A large aperture is an aperture with a small number. I know, it sounds counter intuitive, but that's just the way it is. So, this may be something like f/3.5 or f/5.6 with the lens that came with the camera.

To change the resolution of your photos, you can do that in the menu. Go into the Shooting Menu (the one with the picture of the camera). Then go to Image Quality and/or Image Size. I recommend at least IQ: Fine, IS: L.

Hope that helps!