Shooting with Nikkor 55-300mm Lens?

I've recently got the Nikon D5100 along with the 18-55mm Kit Lens and the Nikkor 55-300mm VR Lens.

(1) My question is when shooting close objects in P mode (for example a cup of coffee and some biscuits on a table = Food Photography) with the 55-300mm lens, it focuses correctly to the objects but when pressing the shutter it doesn't take the picture, any ideas why?

* The lens has AF and VR set to ON.
* The camera is on P mode
* It's my first time to use a DSLR.

(2) When selecting the Continuous Shooting from the menu while in P mode, sometimes it doesn't take multiple pictures, as if you shot a single frame.

Appreciate you help.

Thanks in advance, Ayhamov. (twitter.com/ayhamov)

Added (1). DAN:
Yes, I'm sure about the continuous shooting, it's as long as you press the shutter button it takes up to 4 frames per second.

Added (2). DAN:
Yes, I'm sure about the continuous shooting, it's as long as you press the shutter button it takes up to 4 frames per second.

May be your camera was more hungry. Try to place something else on table instead of coffee and biscuit. Try with some more food, burger, pizza, pasta.etc.etc. It should work then.

1) it will do this with the AF on if it can't perfectly grab focus, which could be due to the lighting. This is a problem when doing close up stuff like this because the 300mm lens is not really meant for close up macro stuff, more for far away so it may not work as you want it to… I usually fix this by holding the button down so it autofocuses, THEN switch to MF and shoot it, it will take the shot and be in focus probably, or just manually focus. Or really just use the 18-55 MM lens… If we're talking about food on the table in front of you that lens should be plenty fine.

2) I believe continuous shooting means it won't process every shot immediately after shooting and you can continually press the button to take many quick shots in a row then it will process… Check the user manual.

In some situations, it is probably not focused correctly even though the lens attempts to focus. Extreme close-ups is usually when this happens.

Put the lens into manual focus mode (the A/M-M switch), then focus it manually. The camera will then shoot the photo. However, if the photo comes out blurry, it is because you either did not focus it correctly, or the lens is too close.

Also, there should be a little green LED in the viewfinder that comes on when the camera is focused. If it does not come on, the camera will not allow you to take the photo in auto focus mode. You can also use the little green dot to help you focus manually as well, but the photo can be taken in manual focus mode whether the green LED is on or not.

It is just harder to focus DSLRs than SLRs, as the SLRs had a "ground glass" center in the viewfinder that helped to determine focus. I wish camera manufacturers would bring this back for DSLRs.