Nikon D3000 with 50MM AF Lens?

I just got a 50mm AF Nikkor Lens. I'm happy
but i was wondering if anyone has any pointers on how to use the camera with this lens
I know I have to manually focus and have no problem with that, my doubt is more related to the aperture and speed factors… So… Any tips are welcome!

The 50 mm lens when attached to a D3000 or other cropped sensor camera is a medium telephoto lens best used for shooting portraits.

If you use the cameras light meter, you will be able to pick many different combinations of shutter speeds and lens apertures.

If you want to use selective focus, you need to use you lens at f/1.8 to f/2.8. If you need more depth of field, you will need to set your camera to f/16 or f/22

Just to answer iCan's confusion - AF means it will autofocus on Nikon bodies that have a focus motor in the body. The D3000 doesn't, so it needs AF-S lenses which have a focus motor in the LENS to autofocus.

I have a 50mm f1.8 lens and its a superb lens for portraits - using it wide open, you MAY find some softness (lenses rarely perform best when wide open or fully stopped down), but it's a classic portrait lens and of course will allow faster shtuter speed with that f1.8. I've shot with it wide open & rarely notice significant loss of image quality (same with my 85mm f1.8, which is tack sharp, even wide).

Of course you don't just use it for portraits - remember to 'zoom' with your legs to frame a shot!

Yes, you will have to manually focus, but do you know about your camera's electronic rangefinder for confirming focus? See page 49 in your owners manual. Once you are in focus, the camera will beep and display the little "in focus" light in the viewfinder. Sometimes you will ignore this, of course, because it will not give you the effect that you want, but sometimes it is helpful.

You didn't say whether you got the f/1.4 or f/1.8 lens, but there's not really any difference in the way you use it.

Ace and Blue gave some good answers, but I'll add a few visual aids. Read the commentary under the images.

Wide open, close to subject, blurs the background:

Wide open, focus on main subject so the foreground object is blurred:

Almost wide open for slightly more depth of field:

Stopping down a little more to leave emphasis on the main subject, but bringing the background a little bit into focus:

Stopping down still more for sharp focus throughout the subject:

Most of my 50mm lens shots have some comment about the settings:

You can generally figure out how far from the subject I was just by looking at the image.

I'm no Nikon expert… But it's confusing me that an AF lens can only manual focus?

edit: Oh okay then!