I'm struggeling to understand the aperture control of the N4004. I'm a student and one was given to me. It is my first SLR camera, and I'm trying to explore some of the features that these cameras bring with them. My problem is that if I manualy change the aperture using the ring on the lens, then I get + and - flashing in the veiwfinder when i try to shoot, and nothing happens. I'm told that this means it can't get a light reading. Even if I set the wheel on the camera body to match the setting on the lens I still get nothing. Even if I set the exposure time on the body and the f/stop to match, I still get nothing. I can however set the wheel on the body to any f/stop I want and shoot as long as the ring on the lens is set the minnimum setting (f/22 in the case of both my lenses). I'me triyng to understand if this is the way this model was designed, or if I'm doing somthing wrong. Does this camera have some way of internaly changeing the aperture? This doesn't seem to make sense, because if the lens is set to a minimum then no more light than that setting could get in regardless of what the cameras internals are doing. Don't get me wronge, for what little experiance I have this camera suits me fine, but I'd like to try and expand a bit, and it seems this camera should at least let me set these basic controls, especialy if it has a control wheel on the body. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Matt

-- Matt Walters (Walter85@pilot.msu.edu), February 16, 2002

Answers

Matt, 1, N4004 is designed to set aperture only on the body, not on lense. So you must set the aperture on the lense ring to the largest value (e.g. f22 in your case)(Actually the aperture on the lense won't close down when you do this; what it does is the aperture can be closed down to any position including the minimum if needed from the setting on the wheel or camera's decision. 2, N4004 has 4 exposure modes: a) fully auto: set aperature wheel at A, and speed wheel at S. The camera will then decide the right combination of aperture and speed according to the light level and focal length of the lense. Also there is blinking warning if the speed is lower than 1/focal-length. b) aperture priority: set speed wheel at S. Then you set aperture wheel at any value you like. However, if the right speed requested for the aperture is out of the rang of the camera, it won't fire, and alternate blinking warning will be display (like what you have seen so far). A failure-proof feature. c) speed priority: set aperture wheel at A. Then you can set any speed you want. Similar to above, it won't fire if the needed aperture if out of the rang of the lens. d) full manual: you set both wheels as you want, and you can know the right exposure from dispaly of the red +, - and green dot.

You will appreciate setting aperture by wheel instead of the ring on lense. When you use many of the current zooms, their aperture will change while zooming. With setting aperture on ring it means what you set is not always what you will get at the end. With setting aperture by wheel, the aperture setting won't change when zooming (except for the large aperture)

Finally, N4004 is fine camera, as capable as almost any Nikon as long as the user is smart.

Enjoy it.

Haishun

-- HS Yang (haishunyang@yahoo.com), February 16, 2002.

Thanks for the info, your the first person thats had any idea at all. I'm trying to become a smart user ;) Thanks again.

-- Matt Walters (walter85@pilot.msu.edu), February 16, 2002.