General Help How-to's

New to Nikonians - Where from here?

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Nikonians is a large community with lots of activity in various places, providing help to photographers on all skill-levels since April 2000. This page should help you to get familiar with Nikonians and the various areas of the community.

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"I was referred to your site by Manfrotto in New Jersey!! The folks there have many nice things to say about the professional help that a beginning, amateur, or professional photographer receives from the valued membership. Thanks for being here Nikonians!!!" -- Rod Donlon, New York, USA

Did Nikonians help you?

Please do share that you did with your colleagues, friends and family and make sure they learn about this friendly community of Nikon shooters as well. And, if you are not on a paid membership yet, please do upgrade. By doing that, you ensure we can continue helping you and others. Thank you!

First time visitor to Nikonians?

As a first time visitor we know it can feel a bit overwhelming, so here are some areas that you might want to look at for starters. Many of these require you to sign up with the community (which is free on its "Basic" membership, by the way).

Here are four areas which are often relevant to new members (each with a short video "screencast"):

I want to learn more about my Nikon camera
I need some practical advice and constructive critique on my photograph
I want to ask a question on Nikon equipment or photography
I want to display my photographs

Members out in the desert taking lovely photographs.
As seen by bgs using his Nikon D3X. Click for larger image.

Help about the Nikonians community

We discuss anything regarding our community, including the forums and galleries in the About Nikonians forum. Post there if you have a general question about the community.

We have a separate Nikonians Galleries Guide and a large community FAQ in our wiki.

If you want to understand who we are and why Nikonians exist, see the About Nikonians page.

Help about your membership

If you need specific help about signing up or have a question regarding your membership, you may want to consult our community FAQ. We further have some specific help areas for:

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any issues with your membership and we will help you.

Beginner at photography?

If you are a beginner at photography and need help, we suggest that you jump over to the New to Photography forum.

Here is an overview with good resources for anyone who wants to freshen up on the skills.

We have compiled a separate page with help on Nikonians and photography which you may want to consult from time to time.

Photography how-to articles, tips & tricks plus more

There are many public articles. These are how-to articles, guides, reviews and tips & tricks from both professionals, our team and members. Don't miss the article series "I am Nikonians" where our members work is on display with their own stories to get you inspired. Start enjoying our public articles section :-)

Premium articles are focusing on expanding your knowledge and capabilitity as a photographer. They are available to all members on Silver level and higher.

We have a separate feature "Behind the Image", where Editor's Choice selected photographs are being discussed and the photographer tells us more about how the image came to be.

"What is Nikonians? Just the best Internet community for Nikon owners;
if you own a Nikon, you'll find you have to be a Nikonian." -- Fabrizio Giudici, Italy

Sharing images with clients and others

Setting up your Nikonians gallery describes how to set up your Nikonians Gallery for sharing images and albums with your clients and others, to e.g. do client-proofing or to collaborate with them on your work in general.

Get image critique and advice

We have created a short guide with a video on how to get practical advice and constructive critique on your photograph.

Setting up your own portfolio

See how to set up your own Portfolio and showing your photos in the community. If you want to learn more about how to create your own Portfolio, or show images in the community in general, this will give you the details.

Discussion areas

Photography discussions are kept in the Forums. You need to signup (to register) to use the forums and nearly all of them can be freely accessed. We have created a short video on how to post questions which you might want to look at. Below are some common areas where members often require help.

There are lots of settings you can set according to your personal preferences. You find these settings under "My Profile" and "Preferences" tab.

Manually marking forum discussions as read

The forums keep track of your visit to show new messages since last time you logged in. If you instead want to manually control what has been read and not, you can select the "manual marking of read forums" in the "Preferences" tab:

Setting the MARK time stamp to "YES" for new messages being manually marked

In the Preferences tab, you can select to manually control what you have read.
Set the feature "Use MARK..." to "yes" to activate this feature.
Remember to click the "Save" button once you have changed the setting.

Using the read new messages link in the top right area of the forums

In the top right area of the forums, click the "Read new messages" link.
This opens up a new window with all new messages

In the "Read new messages" window you mark individual forums as have been read.
You also find the same functionality in the top navigation area of each forum when browsing it.

Mark messages as read link. Marks ALL messages as have been read.

As an alternative, you can mark all messages as have been read.
Using the link "Mark messages as read" in the forums always marks all messages as read.

Marking forums as favorites

You can easily keep track of the topics you are interested in using the "Favorite forums" functionality.

Marking a forum as your favorite

You can use the "star" icon located beside any forum to mark it as a favorite.
Your favorite forums are shown at the top of the main forum page, the "forum lobby".

Favorite forums can be selected as a filtering parameter in the read new messages window.

Once you have selected one or more favorite forums, they can be used in the "Read new messages" window.
Selecting this option and only messages from your favorite forums are shown.

Uploading images in the forums

You can easily upload images to the forums by using the "Upload images" and "Reply with images" button:

Upload images button, shown top right corner when inside a forum

The "Upload images" button is shown top right corner of the screen when inside a forum.
a) Navigate to the forum where you want to share an image or two and then b) click the button. c) Follow the instructions in the upload dialog window.

Reply with images button, top right corner inside forum discussions

The "Reply with images" button is shown top right corner of the screen when you are viewing a discussion.
a) Click that button to compose a reply message and easily b) include one or more images together with your reply.

Contests

The Annual Best of Nikonians photography contest has monthly segments in various disciplines and if you are interested participating, please see the details about contests page. After you've read up on the contests, you are most welcome to participate by posting your images in the corresponding contest forum.

Search

You can search for any photography topic using our search engine NikoScope. You can search for members when you are logged in. We also have a wiki page with help on NikoScope

News: Our blog, newsletters and weekly update email

Our blog contains regular updates about the community. Also follow us on twitter, Facebook and Instagram if you are using these.

If you are not a fan of twitter or Facebook, but like to get the regular updates in an easy, uncluttered format sent to you via email, you can subscribe to our newsletter. By the way, we are never giving out your email address to anyone.

We are sending out a weekly email with the latest hot topics and Editor's Choice images of the week. You can easily change the weekly email to be sent out monthly, or disable it all together. Just see the "My profile" and "Preferences" tab.

The photography market place

We have many, active discussion forums where members hang out. To read and potentially participate in a majority of these, you must be a registered member of Nikonians (the Basic, free membership is good for accessing many of them). Some forums are though available without the need to signup. Our marketplace is one of these, where members sell gear. Have a look, it contains lots of interesting stuff with daily updates.

"Suffice it to say I'm am furthered convinced the Nikonians truly is a "community" by your helpful assistance.
The Silver membership was the best $25 dollars I've spent in sometime." -- Gerard Pas, Canada

Wiki on photography and Nikon

Our wiki contains help, a detailed photo glossary, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), how-to's and tips, for example with photography tips and tricks including composition technique.

Your public info is good, and I am ready to signup for a membership

If you want to proceed with a membership (the starter level "Basic" is free), you are not alone. Every day quite a few new members join Nikonians to get access to more. Signup.

Silver membership gives you access to all of our learning material plus more for only $25 USD per year or $3.90 monthly. Signup on Silver level now.

Your personal data stays with you

We are not sharing your data, we are not using any analyzing tools, have no trackers and we are compliant with stringent data protection regulations. You can export your data stored at Nikonians as well. Read more about this in our Privacy policies.

Advertising free & independent

We have no advertising. No clutter and no pushing. We are independent and completely focused on making your learning easier and your experience more enjoyable. If you are interested, there is some more to read on us being ad-free and independent.

Enjoy your community :-)

bgs & jrp, founders

Btw, if you want to learn more about the community and the team behind it, check out the "About us" section.

30 comments

Thomas A. Panfil (Renaissance Man) on June 13, 2021

It is way too hard to find a way to log in to one’s account from the nikonisns opening page.

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on January 2, 2021

@Josephepower - short version: You can't. Longer version: You need to re-register with a new username using another email address, or you use the contact page at Nikonians and let us know so we can deactivate the first account, making it possible for you to re-register with the same email address. If you have issues, use the contact page.

Joseph Power (Josephepower) on January 2, 2021

How do I change my Username? I have discovered that others apparently use a username that is more private. Thank you.

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on April 3, 2018

Scott:For any changes to your membership, see "My Profile" / "Membership" tab

Scott Sinclair (d70click) on April 1, 2018

I would like to cancel my Nikonians' membership. I am willing to let it expire, but do not want automatic renewal nor automatic CC billing. I've been unable to find any reference to cancelling the account and so am asking if you can help. Thank you. -d70click

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on March 31, 2018

Aart: upload images to your gallery. Select them after that using the link under each or use the link on your portolio page to select them. Upload photos can be found in the "gallery" menu: https://images.nikonians.org/upload

Aart Louw (AartPapaya) on March 31, 2018

How do I upload information onto my (empty) portfolio?

J. Ramon Palacios (jrp) on February 22, 2018

Robert, Check you mail. The icon to change the pages "skin" is at the top right of every page. Just click on it and the the base theme or skin will change.

robert Beeson (rbeeson) on February 22, 2018

GOOD MORNING, Recently the background color when viewing your website, shows white, instead black/gray? Where can u make a change? Thanks, Bob

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on February 19, 2018

Luiz, pls see private message.

Luiz Cazarre (Cazarre) on February 15, 2018

Hi there, I am looking for the author of one picture named garenuit01 which is here at Nikonians, but the search tool seems not to work properly to me. I want to use that image, but am not sure if it is royalty free or not. Anyway, can you help me? Tks a lot, best, Cazarré.

J. Ramon Palacios (jrp) on January 14, 2018

Mark, Usernames cannot be changed. But you can re-start anew, creating a new username and pasword. I will disable your current account. Have a great time!

User on January 12, 2018

HELLO, I'd like to upgrade my membership but before I do that I'd like to change my user name. Can you assist me. Thanks for your help, Mark Stephan

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on January 4, 2018

@Thomas, the 3rd post from top in the D5/D4 forum is from Jan 2nd, 2018.. Let's take this in the About Nikonians forum instead since this is specific to your setup somehow and I believe you are looking at the "read new" page and have tons of unread messages. Directly accessing a forum and the sorting order is latest first, no matter if linear or threaded mode. So, if this is still an issue, please post a new message in the About Nikonians forum. My best!

Thomas A. Panfil (Renaissance Man) on January 3, 2018

Hi JRP, Thanks for your reply but I have not seen what you describe for the better part of a year. For example the "Nikon D5/D4/D3/D2/D1" Forum has 330 Pages. The first page shown has two pinned posts. The first non-pinned post is from 01 DEC 2000. I will not spend the time to increment past 329 pages to reach the newest post. I am fully in favor of maintaining the full record of posts within a forum, but I want to see the newest post first, after any pinned posts. The nikonians site has become so frustrating and nearly useless over the past year, mostly due to this problem, that I will probably let my membership expire if this problem is not corrected. I had previously considered nikonians to be a very valuable support resouce. It has devolved into just a time sink due to this problem. -- Tom Panfil -- Renaissance Man

J. Ramon Palacios (jrp) on December 28, 2017

Thomas, posts in the forums are shown by latest first. What may be confusing is that some posts are pinned at the top. Those are needed there because they either contain guidelines or important info on the forum subject. You can also limit the age of posts to be shown in the Profile section, Preferences tab, using Date limit, to list topics whose modified date is within this date limit which can be chosen to be from weeks, months, a year, or all.

Thomas A. Panfil (Renaissance Man) on December 28, 2017

For the last year or so posts within a forum have been presented oldest first. This is terrible for forums with many pages if the order cannot be reversed. Is there a way to reverse tye order of posts within a forum? How is it done?

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on December 14, 2017

@chiefjbc Email should contain info re this: "Your Profile" and "Membership" tab

John Casey (chiefjbc) on December 14, 2017

How do I change the experation date of my credit card. I received an e-mail from you requesting this

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on November 28, 2017

Alan, your image shows great: https://images.nikonians.org/photo/id-525371/ If you have any issues, please post those in the About Nikonians forum and we help you there. You find that forum here: https://www.nikonians.org/forum/134/about-nikonians

Alan Medlow (medlowa) on November 28, 2017

my last uploaded photo is not showing up when you click on the thumbnail. "a bird in the hand" Please help Thanks Alan

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on October 19, 2017

(Edited by bgs Thursday, 19 October 2017 ) @alextom: Your account is on regular Basic. Maybe you have multiple ones? You should get a confirmation whenever a membership fee has been billed. If you can copy & paste that one using the contact form, the additional info field can be used for any comments there: https://www.nikonians.org/contact, we will take it through that channel

User on October 19, 2017

Thanks for reinstating my membership. As I was charged for a silver membership would you please reinstate my silver membership for the next 12 months Thanks Yom

Rosemary Lahmann (iDeezine) on August 7, 2017

I was a member of Nikonians years ago but then that computer crashed and I lost my contacts, address book, etc. I was a professional horse show photographer for many years, working on the road in 4 states. Stopped accepting bookings at the end of 2012 and now do a lot of graphic design for horse owners / exhibitors - ads, sale flyers, etc. and only do a location shoot now and then if I need images for my design or client has horses going to major high end sale. Also do some portrait work . . . had an outdoor studio for a while . . . old vehicles, fencing, creek, trees, etc. Shot with two D300s for years with different lenses and Alien Bee lighting. Now using a D800 and enjoying the better quality of the images. I live in Missouri. Thanks.

Phillip Couture (pgcoutur0) on July 18, 2017

Why are there no current entries for Mirrorless cameras?

Christopher Galvin (ChrisGal) on May 15, 2017

Greetings, I too am not new to Nikon, my first purchase was a Nikkormat EL when I was sent to Germany in 1978. Since then, I have continued using Nikons. I have had the FM, FG and different F series over the years. I finally bit the bullet around 2010 and purchased a D80 (which I still use) and about three years ago I bought a D7100. I really like the D7100, it is a versatile camera for me. I have come this site every once in a while over the past couple of years and have now decided to start with the basic membership to see how I will learn and enjoy form fellow Nikon lovers. While I do not spend an enormous amount of time on the the net, I am looking forward to becoming a regular. Chris

Gary Cotton (Carazorback) on May 10, 2017

Greetings to all! While not new to Nikon and photography I have been using Nikon products since the early 1970's. I purchased a D810 to replace my D70 and purchased the book "Mastering the Nikon D810" by D. Young - a superb text by the way! I am a bit overwhelmed at the volume of information and sources at the moment, but will eventually "plow through." My photographic interests are primarily landscape photography although my granddaughter is always vying for top billing. I am constantly seeking new ideas and welcome input - when I figure out how and where to post a few photographs. I am curious about "requirements" for posting, both photos and participation in the various forums. Looking forward to learning much for my fellow Nikonians. Cheers, Gary PS: Do any of the forum delve into the use of LightRoom and strategies for learning how to use Lightroom and Photoshop? Thanks and Cheers again, Gary7

David Collins (Castledave) on May 1, 2017

I got the Nikonians contact details when I purchased the iPad edition of a guide to the Nikon D810 and signed up for the free membership but I cannot find any reference to the number of members where I live (the United Kingdom) accordingly it is difficult to decide if I should pay for my membership. How useful is Nikonians to me and how many members live in the UK

Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) on March 27, 2017

Bob, Welcome to Nikonians :-) Best place to post questions is in the corresponding forums. Macro and related photography questions are being discussed in the "Micro, mMacro closeup forum": https://www.nikonians.org/forum/169/micro-macro-close-up

Bob Pratt (capbob) on March 27, 2017

I am a new member and a big time collector of old cameras. I want to use some of my many lens collection on the digital bodies. Presently I have a D-80 ( and two others) I am adapting a medical closeup lens from a Contax mount to a Nikon. I am interested in any comments or suggestions