Nikon d3000 help? With blurred/bug?
When you take a picture of a bug on a plant. How do you make it clear. But everything around it blurry?
NIKON D3000
You need to switch to macro mode ( the one on the dial with a flower symbol ).
You do not want to use the macro mode. Does the d3000 even have that? It's a point and shoot setting.
In order to have the background blur you need to create a shallow depth of field or depth of focus. That is done two ways. First is by your distance from the lens to the subject. The closer you are to your subject the shorter your depth of field will be. That includes being physically close as well as using your lens' zoom.zooming is like walking up closer.
The second control for depth of field is your lens' aperture. The lower your f/, the shallower your depth of field will be.
If you are close AND using a low f/ like 1.8 your bug may not even all be in focus. It is common when shooting macro shots to actually use a fairly high f/ because of how physically/zoomed close you are.
If you are not shooting in manual mode and don't have a good grasp of the exposure triangle you can accomplish this by setting your camera into aperture priority mode, setting your aperture to the lowest you can set it and then taking your shots. If the camera is in auto ISO thee camera will set the remainder of your exposure triangle. If you are not in auto ISO you will need to set your ISO accordingly.
First, a DSLR doesn't have a "macro setting" - that's reserved for point & shoot digicams.
Your 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens can focus to 11'' (.917'). At this close-focusing distance you'll have very little Depth of Field (DOF) at any aperture at 55mm. At http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html we can use the DOF Calculator to prove this.
55mm @ f5.6 focused on a subject at 0'-11'' (.917') DOF is from 0.91' to 0.92' which is almost zero DOF.
55mm @ f16 focused on a subject at 0'-11'' (.917') DOF is from 0.9' to 0.94' which again is almost zero DOF.
You can use the DOF Calculator to compute your DOF for other focal lengths and f-stops.
If you really want to get into macro photography you'll need to invest in a true macro lens like the AF-S DX Micro-Nikkor 85mm f3.5G ED VR or the AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8G IF-ED. Either of these lenses will give you a full 1:1 (life-sized) reproduction ratio. Take a picture of a 30mm long insect and it will be 30mm long on your sensor.
Your 18-55mm zoom has a maximum reproduction ratio of 1:3.2 so your 30mm long insect will be only 9.375mm long on your sensor.