I am taking my pictures in .NEF now. The camera says that it is RAW. My problem is my computer only recognizes .RAW not .NEF . I have a program (NX2) that works, but I still lose alot of quality, because I have to convert them to JPG for them to be viewable on the internet or my computer. How does everyone else with a nikon do it?

 

also for some reason i cant get my camera to focus on multiple depths. If i focus on something, everything closer to me and farther from me is blurry. I know it has something to do with the aparture, but I dont understand how to adjust/fix it. I have tried the settings on the highest and lowest and inbetween. I am using the stock 18-55mm.

 

the higher the number, the less DOF you will have. If you want more to be in focus, select a smaller number.

Idk about the RAW problem you are having as I shoot in standard mode.

 

i use a nikon and shoot in raw. i use adobe lightroom for viewing them on the computer and some of my editing.

 

That's backwards. The higher the F stop the smaller the aperture and the larger the DOF(more in focus)

 

NEW allows you to adjust exposure, white balance, and various other elements that can't be changed in JPEG. Once you've changed those settings and you're finished editing, you're going to save as JPEG to display on the web. The NEF is your original, and from that you save in whatever other format suits your need, whether that be printing or displaying on the web. CaptureNX and Photoshop will both open .NEF files.

Wikipedia DOF to solve your other issue. Changing settings back and forth without knowing their purpose is going to be very frustrating, just take an hour and read about shutter speed, aperture and ISO and you'll know what you're doing.

 

Aperture is good for editing RAW images and retaining quality: Apple - Aperture

 

Aperture is kinda confusing so just think of it this way, the smaller the number the less DOF you have and the larger the number the more DOF you have.

 

NEF is superior to JPEG in terms of compression - It doesn't have as much compression at work in the file. When a file is compressed you lose a good deal of details from the shot.

JPEG can fully fully adjusted with any version of Photoshop, that has no bearing on the NEF/RAW vs. JPEG argument.

The conversion will lose details in the photo, you cannot avoid this. You can mitigate it by altering some minor details in photoshop (sharpening tool, etc) but overall you will lose details, just a fact of life.

Your image capturing problem stems from the fact that the D40 only has a few points of capture for the sensor (most professional DSLRs possess hundreds of ponts). You can overcome this to a degree by altering the points of focus. I noticed that when I chose "closest target" vs. "dynamic area" on my D50 that I usually got the subject focused pretty well. Give that a shot. You should be able to see this in the viewfinder before capturing an image, give your trigger finger a rest .

 

if i only had a d40