I am needing some tips and advice on shooting in manual?

I have a Nikon D40 and am still learning, but I really want to shoot in manual but not sure what exactly to do...I see other pictures shot in manual and they are so much more crisp and clear than the way I shoot in one of the settings...Thanks.I am needing some tips and advice on shooting in manual?
Take a picture using the auto settings and take note of the settings that the automated system used. Then put the camera on manual setting and go back to those settings that you just remembered. Consider those settings your starting point.





Then you can manipulate the camera to your liking. Change the f-stop by step or two. Take a picture, see what it looks like. Or change the exposure time by a step or two and see what it looks like. It's not as hard as some people make it out to be. Once you start you will never go back.I am needing some tips and advice on shooting in manual?
Crisp and clear are attributes of the lens not whether they were shot in manual or automatic, a correct exposure is a correct exposure whether the camera selected it or you did.





As a first step use Aperture priority mode (Av) this at least allows you to choose the depth of field by altering the aperture.





The only time I use Manual Mode is when I use older prime lenses, just for the superb qualities that many of them have.





Just keep watching the histogram try to get a centered peak without burn out or a peak in the darks, this applies no matter what mode you are in and why Nikon makes it easy to adjust the EV value up or down as required.





Chris
The crispness is probably due to manual focus and an appropriate f-stop.





You need some instruction on basic photography understanding the way light is used in the photo process. Understand the aparature and the shutter and the difference.





Understand how the amount and speed of light determines the exposure and how focus determines the sharpness or crispness of the image.





Any basic book on photography will help, digital or not.
Read ';Understanding expsoure'; by Bryan Peterson - and in the meantime, pay attention to the shutter speed and aperture settings. Slow shutters speeds (less than 1/200th of a second or '200' on the camera) are an invitation to blurry shots. Photos are sharpest, generally, at f8-f11.
Are you talking about the camera mode M on the D40, or about shooting with Manual focus?





Shooting with camera mode M means you have to make all the decisions about exposure: F-stop and shutter speed. So you need to know why you want each of those where they are. Nikon also has the S for shutter priority mode that lets you play around with the size of the aperture, the F-stop, and not worry about the shutter speed.


It also has the A or Aperture priority mode which allows you to keep the F-stop constant and very the time that the shutter is open.


Basically what using those two settings will do, is help you get a feel for when and why you want to use a particular F-stop or shutter speed. Then, with practice, you can try Manual and set both with knowledge of exactly why you want to use each one. Of course there are many books about this, but the best thing is to do for yourself and see.





Now if you're talking about focusing Manually, this takes practice and familiarity with the camera and the particular lens. Subject matter is important too because some things are very difficult to get precise focus on and it takes trial and error, which is much easier of course on a digital camera because you can have almost instantaneous feedback.





As far as shooting with Manual focus, one thing you have to be careful about with this particular camera is that some older lenses will not give you exposure data using the certain lenses.


This is important, because many of Nikon's Manual focus lenses are known for being very sharp lenses. Not that the kit lens that comes with the D40 isn't good, but there are better, and that may explain part of the reason that photos you've seen with manual focus look crisper. These are mainly Nikon's AI series of lenses: NONE of the AI or AI-s lenses will give exposure data using this camera, only AF-I and AF-G lenses will give that data.


You then have to set your camera or the lens to Manual focus mode.





That said, If its an AF-I or AF-D lens, there should be a little green circular light that comes on on the bottom left of the viewfinder (where it should tell you your metering mode and ISO and the frame numbers) when you're looking through it that tells you that you're in focus. Actually this only works with F-stops wider than 5.6. The viewfinder is small so this is a great help.





At the right distance, any lens can be shot at infinity and you can get sharp results. Thats easy. Very often though we need to get much closer to our subjects. This brings up depth of field then, which is what brings whats in focus or out of focus to the fore.





Shallow depth of field highlights the differences between very exact and crisp focus and simply inaccurate and poor focusing.





You accomplish shallow dof two ways:





Up close photography: where depth of field is narrower is where you have to be really careful with Manual focus or any kind of focus for that matter. Manual focus is great here because it gives you the control to put the very narrow in focus area right where you want it .


Macro work is of course very up close photography and inherently Manual focus is best, even if you have an auto-focus lens, This is because you similarly need to be very selective about where you put the very shallow in focus area--depth of field is so narrow.





Using a wide aperture (e.g. f/2, f/1.4) is the other way to narrow dof and really highlight the utility of Manual focus.





Very narrow dof that you get with for example a really large aperture like an f/1.8 or f/1.4 or being really close to your subject especially with a telephoto, takes very exact focusing and extreme care as to where the focus is; as for example with a portrait, one eye might be in focus and the other not. Your job is to pay attention to which one is. It makes all the difference.





Again, you can learn this from books, but its much better if you do it for yourself.





I hope this helps!