appealnow Loc: Dallas, Texas

I am heading to Tanzania in a week. I found the spot in the menu to change to continuous shooting. I assume that is burst shooting. I want to be able to go back and forth quickly and not have to open the menu and change the menu setting. I know there are one or two buttons that I can assign. How do I set it up to trigger continuous shooting and then going back to single shot? Anyone familiar with the Nikon system, can you tell me how to set it up?

juan_uy Loc: Uruguay

On the front of your camera, below the lens release button, there is a button with some rectangles as icon. This is the advance mode button.
Press it (and keep it pressed) and look to tour LCD screen and use the rear dial to change between options/modes.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Are you looking to change between single shot and continuous? Is this because you want to conserve on memory space on your card? Or are you looking to be able to focus with the center sensor and hold that focus while you recompose?

Chances are that you will be better served by disabling the focus function on the shutter, and assigning it to the AE-L/AF-L button on the back of the camera. You can use this without changing the camera from AF-S to AF-C - you set the camera to AF-C and never change it back. This way if you want to acquire focus, you press it with your thumb until you get focus confirmation, then recompose as you wish, then press the shutter and focus will not change. If you want to track something, then you keep your thumb on the button and it will constantly adjust the focus until you release it. Used in this fashion you will never be in the wrong drive mode, and you have the benefit AF-S even in Continuous/Burst Mode. It takes about a day or to of shooting to train yourself to do this reflexively but once you've got it, things are so much easier.

You can see a video about how to do this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjXExt3fK38

peterg Loc: Santa Rosa, CA

When shooting wildlife with my Nikons, I have low-speed continuous set all the time. At about 3 frames/second, I can still easily shoot single frames. For continuous, just hold down the shutter button. If I think I may need high-speed continuous (e.g. I think a bird will take off), only then do I shift to high-speed continuous. This reduces control twiddling for much of my shooting. Experiment. You may be able to set your camera to a higher continuous frame rate and still be able to shoot single frames. I think the 5300's max frame rate is about 5 fps. Frame rate depends on file size/write speed and how much the camera has to "think" (e.g. exposure, focus, etc.) before shooting.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

There is no way that I can see where you can set up a button to toggle AF-C/AF-S - The button assigned for changing this mode also addresses other release modes as well.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

This works for me for years.

appealnow Loc: Dallas, Texas

Thank you. Still have to change the menu but a lot faster. It always takes me forever to find what I want in the menus, three levels down. :)

Thanks to the recommendations to start at L continuous for wildlife rather than more shots per second I did look at several vids at the link someone gave on using AE/AL button to change focus to it rather than half release. It will take some getting used to but I am gonna try it. It's nice to have some videos that show you going through the menus; seeing sometimes is a lot easier than just words. Thanks so much, guys.