How to read my camera?

So I have a Nikon D40, my focal length 18-55mm, the standard lens that came with it, and I don't really need to read it to do plan of shots, but I'm more interested in doing more professional shots. I like doing skyscapes at night but I don't know what to set my shutter or aperture to. Some one said I should set it to 1/40sec but I don't know how to read that on my camera, mine shows up 3ooo, 30, 2oooo and a few others that I have no idea what they mean. I know my F6 is my aperture (mine only goes to F8 i think), but when I switch modes from shutter to apeture, they rest until I go back to the previous mode. So I don't know what mode I should be shooting this kind of photography in either. So uh how do I do this?

Kay, you have an extremely serious lack of knowledge. Now, I'm NOT trying to insult you, but only pointing out that your question can't be easily answered. You need a much broader understanding of photography / exposure basics. For instance, your lens will close down to f22, not f8. At night you will get many and varied meter readings from your camera. You need to start with a basic setting in manual such as 1/30 at f5.6 at ISO 400, take a shot and see what you have. From there you can open or close the aperture and / or speed up or slow the shutter speed, and / or raise or lower the ISO to get your exposure correct for the ambient light conditions. But you are going to have to have a much better idea of how these variables work together. For night shooting, you are also going to need a tripod or your shots will all be blurred due to camera movement at slow shutter speeds.

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Review this site:
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