Lessons
Class Introduction
06:20 2Photo Basics
05:31 3Basic Controls: Top Of Camera
04:45 4Basic Controls: Auto Modes-
09:24 5Basic Controls: Manual Modes
23:47 6Basic Controls: Back Of Camera
20:29 7Basic Controls: Flash Modes
14:05 8Basic Controls: Live View
13:10Basic Controls: Left And Right Of Camera
06:21 10Basic Controls: Bottom & Front of Camera
03:03 11Nikon D3400 Lens Options
07:25 12Menu Functions Overview
02:51 13Playback Menu
05:02 14Shooting Menu
21:46 15Setup Menu
23:52 16Setup Menu: Connect to Smart Device
17:01 17Camera Operation Overview
09:19Lesson Info
Playback Menu
We're gonna start on the left top and work our way down. So the first tab on the left is the blue playback menu tab. And we're gonna look at features that control aspects of the playback. Which is not really the most important thing in the world, but we're gonna go through and we're gonna get our camera set up. So if you want to follow along with your camera at home, we're gonna get your camera set up so that it's all set exactly the way that you want it to. Now, you can delete images on the back of the camera with the garbage can button, but you can also do it through the menu system. And if you have a lot of individual photos to delete, it can be a little bit quicker 'cause there's less button pressing in this regard. And so you could go through and you could either select all of them, or ones on a particular date, or ones that you basically scan through and check which ones you that you wanna delete. But generally the thought process is that it's best not to delete too much on a mem...
ory card. It's better to just reformat a memory card. Just download them to your computer and you can delete them from there. But it can be done here. Next up is the playback folder, and this is one of the things that I think is set incorrectly on most cameras. You should change this to all, and it's better to have it here rather than on just the D3400. And the reason is, is that when you playback images it will see images that were shot on different cameras. So let's say your friend had a different model Nikon and they gave you a memory card, before you reformatted that card, you could playback and see that they have images on that card right there. So I think it's a safer choice to let you look at anything that's on that card, no matter what folder it's in. Playback display options. We talked about this earlier in the class. And this is something that I would recommend, at first, checking all of the boxes. And this allows you to change the display according to what your needs are. Now, if down the road, you find that you never, ever, ever use one of these options, then you can come in and uncheck one of the boxes. But this is not the type of thing that normally causes a problem or a distraction because it only goes there when you press that button to get to that particular piece of information. And so I would generally, to start off with, I would just check 'em all off and then uncheck anything you know you don't use later on. I said I was gonna show you the highlights. And so what the highlights checkbox does is it give you a screen that shows you pixels that are over exposed and they will blink at you. And this is just a warning that there are pixels that are very, very bright and you may wanna make adjustments in your exposure so that you don't have an over exposed image. Image review, this is basically do you wanna see an image after you've taken it. In most cases, it's very helpful to do on an SLR like this so that you can see what the digital version of what your shooting. If you wanna save battery power, you can turn this off. Auto image rotation is something that you probably want to leave turned on. That way when you shoot vertical images it'll rotate them when you download them to you computer, and it knows which way you were holding the camera. The only time that you wouldn't want to use this is if you are pointing pictures straight up or straight down. Your camera might not get the orientation correct there. But for most people, most situations, that's gonna save us a lot of time, make things a lot easier. Now rotate tall is a little bit different. I would recommend turning it off. Because when you turn it off it allows you to use the entire screen on the back of the camera. Now you may need to rotate your camera, but that's probably how you rotated it to shoot that photograph. And so that way you can see the image with as much clarity as possible on the back of the camera. You can hook your camera up to a lot of different monitors and TVs so that you can do slide shows. This is one of those areas I'm not gonna dive very deep into. And you can select which image types you're looking for and how long the interval is between each image in the slideshow, and so it's a great way of, you know, doing a little slide show on a standard TV. I mentioned before that you can rate your images. And so you can dive in here and you can start scrolling through your images and rate them between one and five stars. We're gonna be talking about the wireless capabilities of this camera as we go forward. But one of the options you can do is, you can go through the camera, and you can select which images you want to send. And so you're not actually sending images at this point right now. You're just selecting images so that when you get to another place in the menu or on the phone, that you are gonna be able to send that message off. Or send those images over to your phone.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Jan
I just purchased my first DSLR which is a Nikon D3500. There are few changes from the 3400 and this class has helped me tremendously with the transition from point and shoot and phone cameras. I am planning two once in a lifetime trips coming up and along with John's other courses on here I hope to be ready to capture some great memories. Would highly recommend his classes as he is a great teacher. I have tried other courses online and this and his Beginning 3 hour course so far have been the most helpful. Look forward to diving into his Fundamentals class.
Tuan Hoang
John Greengo is a great instructor. He is indeed an expert. 1) Great voice ( clear tone) 2) Extremely friendly look ( must be a humble person) 3) Is indeed an expert ( know what he's talking about) 4) Have a passion teaching the secrets ( some instructors tend to hold back the information but not John) 5) And many more...
Andrea
Great course to help an amateur get familiar with this camera. As a first time DSLR owner, and new to photography in general, there are settings and abilities of this camera that I find to be intimidating at times because they are over my head as a newbie. John explained settings and buttons in a way that cleared up some confusion left from reading the camera manual. I highly recommend this class to every owner of a D3400! John is a great instructor and I look forward to watching more videos of his.
Student Work
Related Classes
Camera Guides