I was wondrering if someone could give some advice on exposure settings to take good beamshots. I have a nikon d40 so I can set the exposure manually/
Well a tripod helps. You need to experiment a bit with shutter speeds so the brightest beam shot is not over exposed. Then keep the same settings for any other shots.
I did some the other day only to find when I did the brightest light last it was over exposed so I needed to re do them all.
Example
Canon G10
1/50sec
ISO 100
F2.8
Distance from ceiling 2.4 meters
Aspheric Q5
Q5 IST reflector
Stock Black wide angle intova.