Setting up the Sony RX10Mk4 for still photos Part 5 Menus: Setup, Camera 1 and My Menu 29 April 2018

This is the fifth and last post in the series on setting up the Sony RX10Mk4 for still photos.

The RX10Mk4 presents the user with a blizzard  of options for every conceivable and some almost inconceivable aspects of camera operation. This might be considered a wonderful thing as it allows each user to configure the camera to personal preference.

The downside is the steep learning curve required to understand and make best use of all those options.

As I trawl through the multiple layers of menus and submenus I have an almost overwhelming feeling of being subjected to extreme overchoice. Many of the available options appear to have been included because they can, not because they appear to serve a useful function.

I strongly recommend that anyone with a new RX10Mk4 sit down with the camera in hand and plenty of free time available and delve into the  (593 page !) Help Guide. This is available from any 

Sony website online or as a downloadable PDF. There is a link to this in the second sentence of the text of the online guide.

The Help Guide describes the various options available in some detail  but has little to say about why you might select one in preference to another.

Hence this series of posts on setting up the RX10M4.

Before reading this post please check out parts 1-4 of this setup guide which you can access from here.

I will only refer to items about which I think I have something to contribute beyond what you can read in the Help Guide.

One big problem with the Help Guide is that that the page sequence in the Guide does not follow the index which does not follow the sequence of items in the camera menus. This makes the task of finding reference to an item in the Help Guide un-necessarily difficult, like perpetual hide-and-seek.

Let’s start with the Setup Menu, for which there are 6 screens.

Monitor brightness. I find this is fine on the Manual setting with the brightness level at default which is +/-0.

I work in bright sunny conditions frequently in which I use the EVF. I don’t bother with the sunny weather setting on the monitor.

Viewfinder brightness. This works well on Auto so I leave it there.

Finder Color Temp.  + is more blue, - is more yellow. The default (in the middle) looks pretty good to me.

Gamma Disp. Assist  Sony is still mixing video items with stills items. This one is for video.

Volume Settings  Video playback sound level.

Tile Menu   I find the menus easier to navigate with this ON.

Mode Dial Guide  It might be worthwhile setting this ON in the early days of ownership but the display which pops up  will soon become tiresome and slows down the picture taking process.

Delete Confirm  “Delete” first or “Cancel” first, take your pick.

Display Quality  Page 287. The “High” setting produces higher battery consumption for no very evident benefit so I leave it at Standard.

Pwr (Power) Save Start Time  Take your pick from 10 seconds to 30 minutes. A longer time will produce more battery drain. I set 1 Minute. The camera wakes up promptly from sleep with a half press on the shutter button.

NTSC/PAL   Video.

Touch Operation  I dealt with touch settings in Part 1 of this setup series.

HDMI Settings  are fully described from Page 303 of the Help Guide.

USB settings  are from Page 309 of the Help Menu.

The remainder of the Setup items are reasonably self explanatory or decently described in the Help Guide if you can find the right page.

I use the Format command frequently so I allocate this to the My Menu.

You can allocate items of your choice to My Menu so they can be accessed more quickly than having to trawl through the full menu system.

Each individual will have his or her own ideas about this but for the record I have:

Format, Touch Operation, (Stills) AF With Shutter, (Stills) Shutter Type, Audio Signals and Creative Style  on My Menu.

Note that items may be grayed out depending on  Mode Dial position.

For instance for the Panorama items to become active the Mode Dial must be on the Panorama position. Likewise Auto items and Scene Selection items.

Quality  Help Guide Page 124. I allocate Quality to the Down button for quick access.

Image Size  There is in my view no reason ever to set anything less than the full 20M size.

Aspect Ratio  This camera like most,  does not have a multi aspect ratio sensor so anything other than 3:2 is a simple crop which would be better left to the post capture stage.

Panorama Size/Direction  You must have the Mode Dial at the Panorama icon for these items to become active.

I have experimented with panorama on the RX10M4 and found it to be of such poor quality as to be useless.

Sony needs to fix this with a firmware update if that is possible. My other Sony camera, the RX100M4  has a decent auto pano capability so I don’t know what went wrong with the RX10M4. I read on user forums that the RX10M3 has the same problem.

Long Exposure Noise Reduction  I leave this ON most of the time. This can be a nuisance when photographing at night when the NR process doubles the effective exposure time.

Stills High ISO NR  I have this Off. I find most cameras including the RX10M4 produce overly soft looking images at default levels of noise reduction. I find that a bit of grain is preferable to the soft/mushy look.

Color Space   I am aware that there is an ongoing controversy on internet forums about this, with some experts insisting we should use sRGB for reasons  beyond my limited technological comprehension. I set Adobe RGB, I usually shoot RAW+JPG and I find my pictures look just fine.

Drive Mode   See Pages 104-115 of the Help Guide.  On my count this tab together with the Bracket Settings tab (just below it in the menu) give the user ( or maybe that is force the user to confront…..) 73 options.

Most other camera makers do the whole drive mode thing much more elegantly with a more coherent arrangement of options. For instance my Panasonic G85 has a Drive Mode Dial with 6 settings (including some like 4K photo and post focus not found on the Sony) and it works just fine.

You should allocate Drive Mode to one of the buttons with user assignable function for quick access. I have it on the Right 4way controller key. There are 8 primary options and many secondary options within each of those. It’s a real smorgasbord for those who just love lots of options. 

In this set of options you find Drive Mode selections as expected but also self timer and bracketing (for exposure, WB and DRO) options all gathered together.

The selectable functions are mostly fairly self explanatory however when in doubt, make the setting, press the shutter button and see what happens.

In order the options are:

Single Shooting   This will be the most commonly set drive mode for general stills photography.

Continuous Shooting  Sub options are Hi (24 fps) Mid (10fps) and Lo (3 fps). I find Mid most useful most of the time for sport/action/BIF and similar. Hi generates a heck of a lot of files very quickly.

Remember !  Rotate the Focus Mode rotary switch on the front of the camera to C(ontinuous) when Continuous Shooting is used (unless you are focussed on a static subject like a person doing practice golf swings or similar).

Self Timer  Sub options are 2, 5, 10 seconds. When you select one of these options the self timer operates but bracketing does not.

Self Timer (Cont.)  Now things start to get a bit complicated, maybe I should say a bit more complicated.  The sub options are:

2 Sec 3 Img, 2 Sec 5 Img, 10 Sec 3 Img, 10 Sec 5 Img, 5 Sec 3 Img, 5 Sec 5 Img. 

The camera fires the shutter after the specified delay the makes 3 or 5 shots each the same exposure. 

 Cont. Bracket  There are, believe it or not, 13 options under this tab and the behaviour of the camera in each depends on the settings made in the Bracket Settings tab below. This is the tab just below Drive Mode in the Menu.

Feeling confused already already ? Wait….. there’s more……

[IF you set [self timer during bracket] in the bracket settings,the self timer will operate then the bracketing sequence will take place continuously without further need to press the shutter button.]

This tab provides a range of options for exposure bracketing.

You get 0.3 EV, 3, 5 or 9 exposures, 0.7 EV, 3, 5 or 9 exposures, 1.0 EV 3, 5 or 9 exposures, 2.0 EV 3 or 5 exposures, 3.0 EV, 3 or 5 exposures.

Single Bracket  The options in this set also provide for bracketing but you have to press the shutter button for each exposure of the sequence. The self timer will operate for each shot if you set it to do so at the [bracket settings] tab.

The 13 bracketing sequence options available here are the same as those available for Continuous bracketing.

White Balance Bracketing  See Page 113 of the Help Guide.  Does anybody actually use this facility ?  Anyway the options are Lo and Hi. When I tried this no bracketing occurred with quality set to RAW or JPG X-fine. I have neither the motivation nor energy to explore this issue further.

DRO Bracketing Again no bracketing occurred when I tried this and I have no idea why.

Bracket Settings  See Pages 113-115 of the Help Guide.

These tell the camera what to do when the Drive Mode is set to one of the options which involves bracketing. 

You get to decide if the self timer operates when bracketing is set. This is usually desirable.  You have the camera on a tripod and don’t want to bump it by pressing on the shutter button for the first exposure. The time interval can be 2, 5 or 10 seconds.

You next get to set the bracket order. I like to have the first exposure the lowest, then normal then the highest. I find it easier to sort through groups of files on the computer screen when the exposures are sequenced this way.

I allocate Self Timer During Bracket to the top row of functions accessible via the Fn button. This emulates one of the functions of the Bracket Settings tab in the Menu.

Camera1/Camera2 Memory    Here you can see what settings have been allocated to each of the memorised camera function sets accessible at the MR position on the Mode Dial.  You can also and perhaps more usefully see the same information by simply turning the Mode Dial to MR.  You cannot change any of the settings on this screen.  To change one or more MR settings follow the procedure outlined in Part 3 of this Setting Up series.

Register Custom Shooting Setting (Reg Cust Shoot Set)    See Part 3 of this setting up series.

Focus Area  You want this available for ready reference outside the Menus.  I have it in the first position on the top line in the Fn button submenu.

Which is the best focus area ? Ahhhhh…. That question generates plenty of  discussion, argument and opinion on user forums.  For still subjects with AF Single I find Flexible Spot best using the Large size (which is actually quite small) for most subjects and the Small size for birds.

Flexible Spot can operate together with Face Detect which can be useful sometimes.

For moving subjects using AFContinuous and Continuous Drive Mode I would have to say the jury is still out.  I have been using Wide with mixed results and also Flexible Spot (Large) also with mixed results. At present I favour Flexible Spot, Large.

I cannot seem to get consistent results with any of the Lock-On AF variants.

Stills SWt.V/H AF Area   What this is supposed to mean and what it does eludes me after several attempts to unravel the mystery. I think it might be an attempt to locate the active AF area in approximately the same place on the frame when the camera is turned from landscape to portrait orientation. Or maybe not. Anyway it doesn’t matter, Just leave it Off.

Stills AF Illuminator  The camera focusses just fine in low light with this off. Having it on is obtrusive and guaranteed to annoy people.

 Center Lock-on AF  I am not sure why this is here when there are options for Lock-On AF under the Focus Area Tab. I find there are altogether too many Focus options, some like this one, disconnected from the others in the menu system and of unclear purpose.

Note that in the menu system this item sits three places below Focus Area.

I experimented with  both the Center Lock-on AF setting and the various Lock-on settings under the Focus Area tab and have to confess it has me bluffed. If I set the Center Lock-on tab in the menu to ON then the lock-on function does not work. If I set one of the Lock-on options under the Focus Area tab then the Center Lock-on function works but the Center Lock-on tab in the menu is grayed out.

AF w/shutter  I leave this at the default which is ON. If you want to allocate AF to the AFL back button (and only the back button) then set this item to OFF. In this case it might be a good idea to assign AF w/shutter to My Menu so it is easier to access.

Pre-AF   Having this ON is a great way to eat up battery power to no particularly useful purpose that I can determine.

Stills AF Area Registration See page 85-86 of the Help Guide. “You can move the focusing frame to a preassigned position temporarily using a custom key.” The Help Guide suggests this might be useful for some kinds of sports photography. Maybe but if this function is utilised it denies any other function to the custom key selected.

Phase Detect Area  When ON this displays the borders of the part of the frame available to the Phase Detect AF system. It is quite large. I have this ON although some users might feel this clutters up the screen a bit.

Exposure Comp  You can set exposure compensation here (but only if the EC Dial is set to zero) although why you would with the EC dial sitting on top of the camera I really don’t know.  If you want to subject yourself to a bit of frustrating cognitive dissonance you can set + or - exposure compensation here on the menu but the EC dial will still indicate zero.

This is yet another example of the way in which this camera can sometimes allow you to make a menu setting at odds with a hard dial setting.

ISO  Allocate this to a custom button. I have ISO on C1 and

ISO Auto Min SS  on C2.  This groups my ISO setting buttons together where I can find them quickly.

Metering Mode As usual the RX10M4 provides more options than most mere mortals can comprehend, let alone manage.  We have Muli, Center, Spot Large, Spot Standard, Entire Screen and Highlight.   I find Multi works just fine in the great majority of cases so I leave it there.

Spot Metering Point   This can be Center or Focus Point Link. Some owners like to use spot metering for small birds in which case linking metering to the focus point would be desirable.

Stills AEL W/shutter  See Page 157 of the Help Guide. You can have this at Auto, On or Off. I just leave it at the default of Auto.

Exposure Std. Adjust  If you want to totally confuse both yourself and the camera’s autoexposure system you might dare to play around with this one.

This looks to me like yet another option of unclear purpose.

Flash See Pages 202-204 of the Help Guide

Flash Mode  The options here appear self explanatory. I allocate flash Mode to the Fn button for quick access. 

Flash Off and Auto Flash are only available in the auto (green) shooting mode.

Flash Comp.  Exp.comp.set and Red Eye Reduction are all well explained in the Help Guide.

I always switch Red Eye Reduction  off to avoid irritating subjects.

My practice is to set flash exposure compensation to -1 EV so that when I do use the built in flash it acts as a complement to the main ambient exposure.  I allocate flash exposure compensation to the Fn button so I can change the setting quickly.

White Balance  and   Priority Set in AWB   See pages 177-179 of the Help Guide for a good explanation of white balance options and settings.

My practice is to use Auto White Balance all the time and adjust color balance in post processing.

DRO/Auto HDR            DRO = Dynamic Range Optimiser. HDR = High Dynamic Range. See Pages 161-162 of the Help Guide.

DRO can be set with JPG or RAW+JPG although the full effect is only achieved with JPG output.

Most cameras have a similar function which seeks to increase dynamic range (the ability to render good highlight and shadow detail when subject brightness range is high)  in JPG images with a single exposure. Panasonic calls it i-Dynamic for instance.

The usual method is for the camera to underexpose the shot a bit to prevent highlight blowout then adjust the JPG tone curve to bring up the mid tones. On RAW files the tone curve adjustment is not made.

I allocate the DRO setting to the Fn button for quick access if required.

My default setting for DRO is Auto which works well in most situations.

Auto HDR is different. It works only with JPG output. The camera makes three exposures with EV bracketing then immediately combines the three to output a single JPG file with better highlight and shadow detail than a standard single exposure.

I have experimented with this and found that it works but the effect is variable and the need for three exposures limits its usefulness to static subjects. A steady hand is required if the tripod is not used.

Creative Style   This is Sony and Panasonic’s fanciful name for JPG settings.  I dealt with this in Part 1 of the RX10M4 setting up series. For the record my current settings are:

Contrast -2, Saturation 0, Sharpness 0.  Panasonic puts noise reduction under this tab but Sony, Canon and Nikon put it elsewhere, I know not why.

On the RX10M4 High ISO noise reduction is on the main menu,  screen 2/14. I set it OFF and am pleased with the results.  I prefer to tinker with noise levels in post processing anyway. The problem with applying noise reduction at the outset is that in the process sharpness is compromised and can never be regained.

Picture Effect   Help Guide Page 183.   This is one to play with for those so inclined. Available only with JPG output.

Picture Profile  Help Guide Page 227. This is mainly for video recording.

There is only one item on this page, Stills soft Skin Effect.  You can set the effect Off as I do or Low, medium or high. Something to play with I guess.

Please refer to the Help Guide as follows:

Manual Focus Page 92, DMF (This is Sony’s version of MF with AF) Page 94, Focus Magnifier page 96, MF Assist Page 98-99, Initial focussing Page 100.

I think the Help Guide explains it all well enough.

I use an initial Focus Mag. Of 1.0.

Peaking Level and Peaking Color  are described on Page 101 of the Help Guide.

I use  Mid peaking level and yellow color.

Focus Ring Rotate  Default is for clockwise rotation (as viewed by the operator from behind the camera) focusses on greater distance, anticlockwise on a smaller distance. My brain is wired to expect this. You can set the reverse.

Face Detection/Shoot Assist  You can read all about the camera’s amazing face detection capabilities on Pages 194-198 of the Help menu. This reads like something from a security force’s national person identification dossier with the ability to register and identify and even prioritise certain particular faces.

I find simple face detection quite useful as it can operate together with other focus modes such as flexible spot.

So I just set Face Detect ON and leave it.

And that, thank goodness is the end of this tedious post.