Nikon Z fc For Dummies. Julie Adair King

entering information.

      6 If you’re using a retractable lens, extend the lens.Some lenses, including the one featured in this book, are retractable — you can collapse them when you’re not shooting, saving space in your camera bag. Figure 1-5 shows you what I mean. On the 16–50mm kit lens, notice the black dot and black line on the lens; when the lens is fully retracted, the two are aligned, as shown on the left side of the figure.If you turn on the camera when the lens is retracted, the camera asks you to extend the lens. To extend the 16–50mm kit lens, rotate the zoom barrel, labeled in the figure, toward the shutter button. To retract the lens again, rotate in the other direction until the dot and line are once again aligned. You need to apply a little pressure — just a little! — to extend the lens and to return it to the fully retracted position. (That resistance is a good thing because you can’t accidentally extend or retract the lens.) The black line on the lens is the focal length indicator. When you use a zoom lens (the 16–50mm kit lens is a zoom lens), the number that aligns with the indicator when the lens is extended represents the current lens focal length. In the figure, the focal length is 50mm, for example. If you’re unfamiliar with the term focal length, don’t worry about it. I cover that topic and other lens details later in this chapter, in the section “Exploring a Few Lens Features.”FIGURE 1-5: Here’s a look at the 16–50mm kit ens in its retracted position (left) and extended position (right).

      7 Remove the lens cap.Now the monitor displays a preview of what the lens is seeing, along with a bunch of data that you can ignore at the moment. If you look through the viewfinder, you see the same thing but with the data arranged a little differently than on the monitor. The eye sensor labeled in Figure 1-6 detects your eye when you look through the viewfinder. In response, the camera turns on the viewfinder display and turns off the monitor.Don’t see anything in the displays? Assuming that you didn’t turn off the camera, it may be taking a nap to save battery power. To wake the camera, press the shutter button halfway and release it.

      8 Adjust the viewfinder to your eyesight. If you don't take this step, subjects that appear out of focus in the viewfinder might actually be in focus, and vice versa. If you wear glasses while shooting, adjust the viewfinder with your glasses on.To start, locate the diopter adjustment dial, labeled in Figure 1-6. Put your index finger on the dial, look through the viewfinder, and concentrate on the onscreen data. Then rotate the dial until the data appears sharpest. Ignore the live scene; it won’t get any more or less sharp, because you're not actually focusing the camera.

      FIGURE 1-6: Rotate this dial to adjust the viewfinder to your eyesight.

That's all there is to it — the camera is now ready to go. If you’re itching to take a few test shots, flip to the end of this chapter for a primer in shooting in Auto mode and Self-Portrait mode, the simplest Shooting modes offered by the Z fc. Just promise to head back this way when you’re done, because the pages in between contain information that will help you better understand your camera’s basic operations.

       MEMORY CARDS: HOW BIG, HOW FAST?

      SD memory cards offer different capacities and read/write speeds, which refers to how quickly they can record and transfer data. Of course, because this camera component is really a computer-related item, The Powers That Be use cryptic symbols and acronyms to indicate capacity and speed. Allow me to simplify things a bit by explaining the most common terms used to describe these specifications:

       Capacity: You should see a specific storage capacity in big numbers on the card, usually followed by the letters GB. For example, the card shown in Figure 1-1 has a capacity of 64GB. Cards also carry a capacity category label: SD indicates a capacity of up to 2GB; SDHC, 2GB to 32GB; and SDXC, 32GB to 2TB (terabytes). As I write this, there actually aren’t any SD cards that offer storage capacities greater than 1TB, however.How large a card should you buy? It depends on your risk tolerance. The greater the capacity, the more photos and videos it can hold — and the more work you lose if that card gets lost or fails. Keep in mind that a 32GB card can hold 764 pictures even when you set the camera to create the largest, highest-quality files. Video files take up more room than photos, so you may want to buy 64GB or 128GB cards if video is your main interest.

       Card speed: This specification is stated in several ways, but in all cases, higher numbers indicate speedier cards. Speed is most important for video recording and for burst shooting (capturing a rapid-fire series of pictures). At the very least, look for a card that has an SD card speed of 10 (this number is usually inside a circle, as in Figure 1-1). You should also see a UHS speed class number ranging from 1 to 3. This value appears inside a u-shaped container. Again, a higher number means a faster card. However, as far as the camera is concerned, you gain no advantage by going beyond UHS speed class 1. So don’t pay more for a higher UHS speed unless you plan to use the card in another device that can handle the faster data flow. Finally, most cards now also state the actual data-transfer rate, such as 150MB/s (megabytes per second). Whether you actually see that speed performance depends on the capabilities of the device, however.

Taking a Brief Camera Tour

      The next several pages provide a basic “What’s this thing do?” overview of your camera’s external features.

      

In upcoming figures, some buttons bear multiple labels to indicate that they play different roles depending on what camera functions you’re using. For example, some buttons perform one job during shooting and another during picture playback. As Nikon does in the camera’s user manual, I refer to the button by the name that relates to the function I’m discussing. Don’t worry about memorizing the button names, though — when I give instructions in the book, the button appears in the margin or is labeled in a nearby figure.

      Back-of-the-body controls

Starting in the upper left corner and working clockwise around the camera back, you find the following controls, shown in Figure 1-7:

        Playback button: Press to start reviewing your photos and videos; press again to return to shooting. Chapter 8 covers picture playback; for movie playback, see Chapter 7.

        Delete button: This button offers one way to erase files stored on the memory card. Chapter 9 has specifics.

        Monitor mode button: Pressing this button cycles through four Monitor mode settings, which determine when and whether the monitor and viewfinder displays are activated. Look for details on this fairly complex option later in this chapter, in the section “Choosing which displays are active.”

       Eye sensor: This window tells the camera when you’re looking through the viewfinder. At the default Monitor mode setting, the camera automatically turns off the monitor and fires up the viewfinder in response. When you take your eye away, the viewfinder goes dark and the monitor preview reappears. Note that the sensor can also be triggered when you move a finger or another object over it, so don’t panic if the monitor turns off and then on again briefly when your eye is nowhere near the viewfinder — you likely just covered the sensor for a second.

        AE-L/AF-L/Protect button: When shooting, holding