My 1st DSLR

Gonna bet you got it at teh fair XDD

Well the only tip i can give is just try out manual and experiment with the settings~

I'd say enjoy photography! Read up on some basics and techniques, look at other people's photos and just experiment, even taking a bad picture is good as it will be a source of learning. ^^

Agreed on playing around with different settings, until you find what works for you~ :3

Congratz on your new camera. Have fun taking photos!

Nice ^ ~ ^ . . . once you get the hang of it. . . you will be taking awesome pictures in no time :p

Welcome to the world of real cameras :D. The sky is the limit!

I have one tip. Keep browsing figure.fm and whenever you see a picture that makes you go "wow" try and jot down the reasons why you think it did so and use them in your own work. There are a lot of bad photographers on figure.fm (like me), but then there are some amazing ones that post occasionally too.

get over it, you:

1) Nikon makes good cameras even at the four-digits level (in general, most camera manufacturers start reducing the number of digits used for a model's number the more professional the user it's intended for, excepting Pentax whose K series switches between letters for noobs/semi-pros to numbers for pro gear)

2) the starter kit is good and will get you reasonably far, and the lenses may be reusable as you upgrade further on the same brand to a better more professional DSLR (at least until they suddenly jump to 35mm from APS-C sensors, which may necessitate larger lenses/mounts)

3) You have managed to get good pictures out of it even from day 1: minimal unintended blur, reasonably limited aliasing and blowout on histograms (afaict from the Jpegs you posted, okay...), and possibly know how to post process in camera or in photoshop.

It's great. sure it may be lacking in pixels, but unless you suddenly want to take photos for a very big picture, having fewer pixels in a shot is not necessarily a crime once you've gone past 5MP - that is pretty sufficient for internet and onscreen displays, maybe smaller photo prints. The difference in nature between image files and how dye sublimation printers (as used for the best photo prints) operate will introduce some roughness that will help further conceal the lack of pixels to some extent :D in fact, it may be a good thing when you start and just need to learn the principles of photography rather than doing anything extremely serious. I use a 12MP DSLR, and having a picture that's basically four times as large as my screen can cause problems of its own in Photoshop even with 4Gb of RAM thrown at it!

One other thing: if you were shooting directly to JPEG - STOP. Nikon supports a type of RAW file called NEF which you should shoot to as much as possible, since it helps to retain even more information each shot. Shooting to NEF instead of JPEG is like shooting to film instead of polaroid - you need to do extra work after shooting to finally see the pics as you really intend them, but you have the flexibility to change much more of the picture way after the trigger hit than in JPEG.

If you're shooting in JPEG because you have problems bringing NEF into Photoshop, consider upgrading to CS5 (D3000 NEF support was added only in CS4 updates), or using this free DNG converter

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4620

DNG is kind of like RAW, but it also contains the data necessary to interpret the RAW in any software that supports the DNG standards (which are open btw, so no worries about it going south if Adobe somehow dies).

You should also speak to other Nikon users when possible for info relating to specific quirks of using Nikons in general and/or D3000s in specific, as well as photography in general.

Enjoy! Photography was addictive even when film was expensive, developer was expensive, and you were damned well expected to sit in a poorly-lit room full of funny equipment and gunk to develop it, and digitisation has NOT helped. xD

D3000 is a nice DSLR, don't worry about that. As expensive as DSLRs can go, a great photo still comes down to the one who shot it. ^^ The point is to enjoy shooting photo and without knowing, you may end up as good as you wanted to be!

Azunyan photo was good ! Practice makes perfect ^_^

First of all, congrats on your SLR!

And second, I accidentally navigated away from the page while typing my comment, so here's a short and sweet version T_T

A great guide to narrowing down what kind of lenses are useful for which type of photography:
[url]http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/best-digital-slr-lens.html[/url]

and here's a great website for reviews and camera-care info, I'll link you to your camera's review but check out their main page for other stuff:
[url]http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Nikon_D3000/[/url]

Hmm, a D3000, still a good cam. Here is a tip, try to learn to use that lens only. After you've mastered that lens for everything (landscapes, macro, portraits and etc) then and only then think about buying another lens.

ongrats on your dslr and have fun with it

you are always better off using manual settings as you can tweak and configure how you want your shots to look. Auto settings are a waste, at least for me.

Grats on your camera. You may want to pick up a tripod, they can be invaluable!

congratz for your first DSLR :D D3000 is quite nice :D not as old as my d70 though :D

well i recommend to use A mode first where you just have to set the aperture manually and shutter speed will be automatically set. pretty decent, i'm still using it right now :D

for beginning i recommend also to invest on tripod or cheap study lamp for more light, don't buy anything pricey coz the result won't really different.

that are my tips, just want to share some :D keep practicing! :D

Very Nice =D

Congrats on your first DSLR and welcome to the Nikon family. (hehe) What helped me more than anything was understanding exactly what exposure was and how to control it using shutter speed, ISO, and aperture.

Each one of these helps control exposure as well as one or more other aspects of the photo you take. It's important to know which to adjust for your exposure to get the picture you want.

I had a DVD that helped me and I think it's all online now - seems to be the same content from what I remember. The guys voice is a little boring but the info is good. It's describing the Zone System of exposure but it's a great place to start out.

Here's video 1: http://vimeo.com/6571932

Seems like the others are here as well:
http://vimeo.com/search/videos/search:perfect%20exposure/5678fd75

I also kept my camera in manual mode all the time to force me to learn how to use it - it's a little tough at first but it forces you to learn. I almost never take it out of manual mode now because I don't want to give up the control. :D

If that's not interesting to you, put it in Aperture Priority mode and shoot with the most wide open setting your lens will let you. If you only have the kit lens that's going to be a 3.5. It helps to give you a shallow depth of field and blur the backgroud.

Oh, first additional purchase to look for? (I know you didn't say that but you will soon) Ask almost anybody with a DSLR and they will say "Get a fast 50". That's a 50mm prime lens (no zoom) with a very wide open aperture.

I have the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D which only cost me about $100 but you can get some really soft backgrounds and still have the focus point really sharp.

As the other said - most of all, have fun.

Congrats on your first DSLR. That shot of Azu-nyan looks great.

If you're a total newbie, reading up on some of the general photography terms and concepts to get yourself familiar with things is a good idea. Other than that, experimenting and playing around is your best bet on improving. Getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn.

I second the go out and shoot approach. Play around with the controls, don't just shoot on auto all the time. On the other hand automatic control of exposure can get you a shot when trying to figure out the proper manual settings will cost you that shot. if you plan to shoot figure and such get a small tripod. Slik makes one that's about 20 bucks US and is a real bargain. Fit's in a bag if you don't have too many lenses on there too. If you don't have a bag, get one, doesn't need to be fancy, but it helps to have a place to put the camera away while you are walking around. Also you can use the bag to carry filters, spare batteries, lens cleaning cloths and extra SD chips, all of which you will want to have with you. Carry the camera just about every place you go even if you don't plan to use the camera. Some of my best shots happened because I could just grab the camera out of the bag. Go around you neighborhood and just shoot. Have fun and enjoy the camera.

Congrats on the new camera! I recently upgraded from my D50 to a shiny D7000. I think someone mentioned this already, but if you decide to buy any lenses, I highly recommend getting the Nikor 50mm F1.8. It's about $120 and is by far the lens I shoot the most with. It works great for figures and dolls, and does very well in the portrait space as well! Only issue is that it won't be able to autofocus on your camera...

Most importantly though, have fun and explore! I shoot in P mode for the majority of the time, but drop to the other modes when the situation warrents.

Never shoot on auto, and if you want to work on an auto mode, do like shutter priority or something, since you still have some manual controls.

Also I would look into purchasing a 28 or 50mm prime lens, Prime means that it doesn't zoom, I know your first though is that "zoom is awesome why would i not want it" Because unless you want to spend 1200 dollars on a good zoom-able lens then you will have high F/stop when you zoom in, so right now your 18-55 is a 3.5-5.6, that means that at 18 the lowest you can go is 3.5, but if you zoom to 55mm then the lowest you can go is 5.6. All this boils down to is the depth of field and how much light your cameras sensor can receive. The higher the F/Stop the less light and longer exposures you have to do.

Also another tip is, unless you have it on a tripod try not to go under 1/60 shutter speed, mainly because of camera shake when its hand held. 1/60 is the lowest you can go before you notice minor camera shake. I always try to keep it at 1/80 when I'm shooting in low light, or I just use my external flash (not the built in flash)

Good luck with your new camera and have fun with it :D

Congratulations on your first DSLR. Those are some really nice pictures you took.

Congrats on the new gear (^^) you will have so much fun with it, shoot more and you'll be better before you even know it (^^)b