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The aperture of a camera is the opening in which light travels through when shooting images. The diameter of this opening is controlled by an iris. The larger the opening, the more light is aloud to pass through. This aperture setting is commonly referred to as the F-stop setting.


In Aperture Priority Mode the Nikon D40X internal processor will choose shutter speed automatically.

The aperture may be used to adjust the depth of field of an image. The largest aperture setting on the Nikon D40X camera is F4.8, and the smallest aperture setting is F22. The larger the aperture the lower the depth of field. Conversely, a smaller aperture will increase the depth of field.


Rotating the command dial clockwise:

• larger aperture


• decrease depth of field


• decrease F-stop value

Rotating the command dial counter clockwise:

• smaller aperture


• increase depth of field


• increase F-stop value

The following images were taken using the minimum and maximum aperture settings, respectively:

The Sunny 16 Rule provides a great starting point for outdoor photography on a sunny day, and cloudy days too. The rule is simple; set your f-stop to 16, and your ISO should be a reciprocal of the shutter speed. Thus, if the ISO is set to 100, the shutter speed should be set to 1/100 (or something close to 1/100, 1/125).

Here is a cheat sheet:

	Sunny Distinct Shadows	Hazy Sun Soft Shadows	Cloudy Barely Visible Shadows	Overcast No Shadows
F-Stop	f / 16	f / 11	f / 8	f / 5.6
ISO 100	1/125	1/125	1/125	1/125
ISO 200	1/250	1/250	1/250	1/250
ISO 400	1/500	1/500	1/500	1/500
ISO 800	1/1000	1/1000	1/1000	1/1000

In Shutter Priority Mode, you choose the shutter speed, and the Nikon D40X internal processor will choose aperture automatically. To use the Shutter Priority Mode, set the Mode Dial to "S", as shown below.



The shutter speed adjustment is used to control exposure time. High shutter times produce high exposure, and low shutter times produce low exposure. The D40X has a maximum shutter time of 30 seconds and a minimum of 250 microseconds (1/4,0000 seconds).