I am also new to digiscoping, and to using the 990 Coolpix. I followed the recommended settings in Andy Brights' article, but also cant seem to get my f-stop number lower than 3 something... I have yet to see a f-2 appear under any circumstances. If I set my shutter speed to anything faster than 1/125 the photo is too dark to make anything out.. if I set to 1/30 or 1/60, I get a light enough picture, but everything is blurred. I admit I havent a clue what I'm doing so I just fiddle with combinations.
I was under the understanding, however, that the settings for the different zoom in the camera menu i.e. telephoto 2, telephoto 3, wide angle... should be just left on the default or normal setting? I also disabled digital zoom, and only use the optical zoom, never going all the way to 4x. I have managed a couple of decent shots here and there, but I think its more luck than anything else. I also would like to know how to get the aperature priority and shutter priority to cooperate.. I was under the understanding that if I chose one of the settings (a fast shutter speed for instance), that the camera would pick up the light available and set the aperature accordingly on its own. No?