Nikon® D5300™ Digital Field Guide
Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Indianapolis, IN 46256
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Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 978-1-118-86726-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Credits
Acquisitions Editor
Aaron Black
Project Editor
Cricket Krengel
Technical Editor
George Maginnis
Copy Editor
Kim Heusel
Director, Content Development & Assembly
Robyn Siesky
Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Richard Swadley
About the Author
J. Dennis Thomas is an Austin, Texas-based photographer and the author of 20 Nikon Digital Field Guides by Wiley Publishing, as well as the author of Concert and Live Music Photography: Pro Tips from the Pit and Urban and Rural Decay Photography: Finding the Beauty in the Blight, published by Focal Press. He is also a frequent author of articles on photographic theory and technique for Digital Photo Magazine, MasteringPhoto.com, and his own website, the Nikon Digital Field Guide Online (http://NikonDFG.com).
He is represented by Corbis Images and has done freelance photography for Rolling Stone, SPIN, and Veri.Live magazines. His photographs have been featured in many notable publications including Rolling Stone, SPIN, People, Us Weekly, Elle, W magazine, Thrasher, Ebony, New York Post, Veri.Live, and many more.
When not out photographing or in front of his computer writing about photography, he can be found gracing the stages of the Live Music Capital of the World and popping up randomly in films and television shows.
As always, to my girls Henrietta and Maddie…
Acknowledgments
These books wouldn’t be possible without the great team at Wiley working behind the scenes to put out a great product. My name is on the cover, but there are so many folks behind me that contribute to these books and I’d like to thank them all.
I’d also like to thank the folks at Precision Camera and Video in Austin, Texas, Jack and Monica Puryear at Puryear Photography, and Sigma USA for making great lenses.
), you press this button (which has a simple red dot on it) to start recording video. Press it a second time to stop recording.
)/Aperture (
) button. Press this button while spinning the Command dial to modify the exposure set by the D5300 light meter when it is in the Programmed auto (
), Shutter-priority auto (
), or Aperture–priority auto (
) modes. Turning the Command dial to the right increases the exposure, while turning the dial to the left decreases the exposure. When set to Manual exposure mode (
), you can press this button and rotate the Command dial to adjust the aperture settings.
). Press this button to display information on the LCD screen. The information display shows all of the exposure and camera setting options.
mode, one of the semiautomatic modes, or Manual exposure mode 
)/Protect (
) button. The Auto Exposure/Autofocus Lock (
) f2 to provide AE/AF Lock, AE Lock only, AE Lock (hold), AF Lock only, or AF-ON. AE Lock (hold) locks the exposure when you press the shutter-release button once; the exposure remains locked until you press the button again or the shutter releases. AF-ON engages the AF in the same way that half-pressing the shutter-release button does. When the camera displays an image in Playback mode, press this button to lock the image and protect it from being deleted.
). Press this button once to bring up the information edit display on the LCD screen and use the multi-selector to adjust the camera settings.
). Press this button to activate playback. By default, it displays the most recently taken photograph. You can also view other pictures by pressing the multi-selector left (
) and right (
).
) or Dynamic-area AF (
) mode, you can use the multi-selector to change the active focus point. You can also use the multi-selector to navigate through the menu options.
). When viewing menus, press the OK button (
) options. When actively shooting, press the OK button (
). If you are reviewing your pictures and find some that you don’t want to keep, press this button to delete them. To prevent you from accidentally deleting images, the camera displays a dialog box asking you to confirm that you want to erase the picture. Press the Delete button (
). When reviewing your images or using the Live View option (
). You may have to press the Thumbnail/Zoom out button (
). Press this button to access the D5300 menu options, including Playback (
), Custom Setting (
) or Full-time-servo mode (
) and the center AF point is selected. This LED also lights up when you set the camera to Red-Eye Reduction flash (
) using the camera’s built-in flash.
)/Flash compensation button (
). When you’re using the Programmed auto (
), Slow Sync (
), Rear-curtain sync (
), or Rear-curtain Slow Sync (
) modes. After the flash pops up, press this button in conjunction with the Exposure Compensation button (
) or scene modes, the flash automatically activates, but some flash sync modes aren’t available in some scene modes. The following flash modes are available when using the scene modes:
), Child (
), and Close-up (
). In these flash modes, you can use the default, Auto-flash (
), Auto with Red-Eye Reduction (
), or set it to Off.
). In this mode, you can select Red-Eye Reduction (
), the default, Auto with Slow Sync (
), or Off (
).
). You can set the Function button (
) in Custom Setting menu (
). Press this button to display the release mode options on the LCD screen. Use the multi-selector to choose an option then press the OK button (
) autofocus settings. When you set the camera to Auto area AF mode (
), you don’t see the focus point until you press the shutter-release button halfway and the camera achieves focus.
). You see this icon if there is no memory card in the camera. This warns you that no images can be recorded.
). This icon appears only when you set the Picture Control to Monochrome (
). When the camera’s battery is nearly depleted, this icon appears. If it is flashing, the battery is completely exhausted and you can’t take any more pictures.
). When this indicator lights up, you know that the Auto Exposure is locked.
). This indicator appears when you use the Programmed auto mode (
), Continuous Servo AF (
), or Single Servo AF (
) is applied, or if the camera is under- or overexposing at the current settings. This display also doubles as a digital rangefinder to help you when manually focusing lenses. If the indicator bars are on the left, the focus is falling in front of the subject; if the indicator bars are on the right, the focus is behind the subject. Rotate the focus ring until a single indicator bar is centered and you see a 0 above the innermost two rangefinder lines. The focus indicator also appears when the camera achieves focus.
) in conjunction with the Exposure Compensation button (
). This indicator appears when Auto-bracketing is engaged. Bracketing is set up in Custom Setting menu (
). If you set the Function button (
). This indicator appears when you activate Auto ISO (
), as well as the Exposure compensation (
). This indicator lets you know that there are more than 1,000 exposures remaining on your memory card.
). When an error occurs with the camera, this icon flashes. Press the Help button (
), Active D-Lighting (
), or White balance (
). The auto-bracketing choices are made in Custom Setting menu (
)/Capture mode indicator (
). By default, this displays the approximate number of photos that can be recorded to the memory card. When the camera is making a White balance preset, this area displays that icon (
) or TTL (
), is displayed here. It also appears if you attach a Speedlight and apply Flash compensation with the controls on the Speedlight, rather than with those on the camera.
) and Beep off (
). One or the other appears at all times. You set this option in Custom Setting menu (
), this shows whether auto bracketing is on or off.
), Dynamic-area AF 21-point (
), Dynamic–area AF 39-point (
), 3-D tracking (
), Center-weighted (
), or Spot (
) metering.