TMI, Camera ! TMI !

November 15, 2008 9:36 AM

I am a lame newbie who does not know how to operate her SLR. Please help me make this box go away !

Every time I take a picture with my Nikon D40 there is an informational box on my LCD viewfinder that displays the following settings: Camera, Metering, Shutter, Aperture, Exposure Mode .. etc. It Will Not Go Away, no matter how many settings I muck about with.

The manual is lost, and I'm at a loss as to what to google.

Please help ! I'd like to see the pictures I'm taking !

posted by duckus to technology (9 comments total)

Well Googling nikon d40 manual gives this as the first result.

The quick fix should be to hit MENU, select the PENCIL icon, and turn IMAGE REVIEW on (#7 on that list).
posted by hobbes at 9:45 AM on November 15, 2008

I Googled "Nikon D40 Manual" and the first hit was this PDF. The second hit was Ken Rockwell's Nikon D40 User's Guide, which is full of helpful links.

Page 22 of the manual has information on controlling the Shooting Information Display.
posted by bcwinters at 9:49 AM on November 15, 2008

Thanks for link .. alas, there is no #7 .. I'll keep digging.
posted by duckus at 9:50 AM on November 15, 2008

If you want to see the picture before you shoot it, you're out of luck. The D40, like most Digital SLRs in its class doesn't have a live preview like you'd get in a compact digital camera. You have to use the viewfinder like a film SLR.
posted by advicepig at 9:50 AM on November 15, 2008

Okay .. all good now .. somehow, my menu settings got changed to "Simple" thus hiding most of the custom options.

I'll be reading my manual now ..
posted by duckus at 9:57 AM on November 15, 2008

Oh, and it looks like the preview mode will use wahtever teh settings were when you last used the review mode.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/NikonD40X/page9.asp
posted by advicepig at 9:59 AM on November 15, 2008

If it's like the D50, up and down on the directional control next to the display will select what you see when previewing a photo. Either just the photo, or the info box you're seeing, or a histogram, or the overexposed bits flashing. Just scroll to the one you want and that setting sticks around for the next photo.
posted by teg at 10:22 AM on November 15, 2008

Even better than the manual - there's a book called the Nikon D40 Field Guide. It's only $14 at Amazon. I have the D50 and bought the D50 version of this book, which I like.
posted by 2oh1 at 11:33 AM on November 15, 2008

Just hit the up or down button on the right of the display screen to cycle through the different displays when reviewing pictures.

Enjoy the camera by the way!!
posted by kenchie at 3:47 PM on November 15, 2008