How to in Nikon D5000

[maalamaal]

hi i just bought new Nikon D5000 and i am looking for some help and guidance in using it.
i want to know how to use continuous shooting mode and capture a bird flying and a capture some pretty fast moments.....help is very much appreciated

[Frog]

I'm not familiar with enough with d5000 controls.
You might try their digitutor sight http://www.nikondigitutor.com/index_eng.html
Pretty thorough tutorials on using Nikon cameras. Click on the d5000, skip the movie and go to contents.
You'll get better answers from more knowledgeable people so keep coming back.

[maalamaal]

Thanks a lot for your help.

one mre question how do we determine what shutter speed is required when taking pics?

[Frog]

Your shutter speed is dictated by many factors.
The amount of available light.
Your aperture setting.
Your iso.
Whether you are using some sort of stabilization, be it tripod, monopod, sandbag, or even whether you have a vr lens on.
What shutter speed you want will depend on the speed you need. If you are doing a shot of a stationary object with your camera on a tripod it doesn't much matter.
If you are taking shots of flying birds, speeding cars, etc. then you'll want a fast shutter unless you like blurred objects.
If you shoot with aperture priority, the cameras meter will decide on what the best shutter spped is. If you shoot in shutter priority, you set the shutter speed and the camera decides what aperture is best and probably iso also...not sure about that unless you also have it on auto iso.
If you go manual, then you can set both aperture and shutter to balance what you want.

What are you after, want to shoot?

[maalamaal]

i want to shoot a fountain and want to make sure i capture it properly.
there is lot of sunlight though and i dont use tripod.i am using VR lens

[Photo-John]

Your shutter speed is dictated by many factors.

Frog gave you a really good answer. It sounds like you're really new to photography and there's going to be a big learning curve. It's great that you're in here asking lots of questions. There's a lot of collective knowledge here

You asked about continuous shots of a bird in flight. There are a couple kinds of "continuous" settings on your D5000. There's the number of photos the camera shoots when you push the shutter release button. You can set it for single shot or so that it keeps taking pictures as long as you hold down the button. Then there's the auto focus. You can set it for single shot where it locks the focus on whatever you point the camera at until after you've pressed the shutter release all the way down. Then there's continuous auto focus, which will track and keep adjusting the focus as long as you keep the focus point on your subject. If I was shooting a bird in flight I'd use a fast burst rate (hold down the shutter release) and continuous auto focus. And of course, you'd also want a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the bird.

There are a lot of variables to deal with. That's why cameras like the D5000 have auto and scene modes. It can be pretty overwhelming to manage all the controls when you're just learning. The most important thing is to take lots of pictures, experiment with settings and look at the data (EXIF data) your camera saves when you're looking at the photos on the computer. Don't expect to get perfect photos right away. I've been doing this for 20 years or so and I'm still learning and refining my technique

So go take some bird photos and then post them here so we can help you get better!