My Menu

The evening before a dawn start with the Nikkor Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR, two questions are worth putting to the camera: how full is the battery, and is it wearing out? Battery info in the setup menu answers both, with a charge percentage and an age reading that runs from 0, meaning unimpaired, to 4, meaning it is worn out and due for replacement (p. 855). On a Z6III with no satellite positioning receiver attached, it is the 35th entry the setup menu shows (pp. 805-807). Starting with the cursor on the first entry, the multi selector, the four-way ring on the back with the OK button at its centre (p. 76), needs 34 presses downwards to reach it. Nikon's guide says neither where the cursor starts nor whether a list wraps round from its first entry to its last, so that count assumes a start at the top and no wrapping, and every count in this chapter makes the same no-wrap assumption. If the list does wrap, seven presses upwards get there.

Rank the same entry fourth in My Menu and it sits three presses from the top. Nothing in the camera has changed except where the shortcut lives.

The Z6III keeps its settings in a deep tree of menus, and My Menu is a short, flat list of the few you keep coming back to. Choosing what goes on it is a question of timing. Settings you change several times an outing earn a slot in the i menu, settings you change from one outing to the next earn a place in My Menu, and settings you change once can stay where Nikon put them. Page numbers in parentheses point to Nikon's Z6III Reference Guide, edition 09, which matches firmware 2.00.

01.How the Menu Tree Is Organised

Press the MENU button and seven tabs line the left edge of the screen. The first two are the photo shooting and video recording menus, then come Custom Settings, playback, setup and network, and last is either My Menu or Recent settings, whichever you have chosen to show (p. 75). Menus and Controls tours what each tab is for.

Each tab opens a list, and many entries in that list open lists of their own. ISO sensitivity settings in the photo shooting menu is one entry holding five settings, among them the limits for automatic ISO, where ISO is the number for how strongly the camera amplifies the light it records (p. 446). Time zone and date, a setup menu entry, holds four (p. 805). The Custom Settings menu adds a level in front of every item: seven lettered groups, a for Focus through g for Video, each opening onto its items (pp. 622-627). An item's code is its group letter followed by its place in the group, so f2 is the second item of group f, Controls.

The Settings Finder on this site counts 250 top-level entries across the seven tabs, 94 of them in Custom Settings alone. The sub-items beneath them push the real number of settings well past that.

Moving through the tree always follows the same pattern (pp. 76-78). Left puts the cursor in the tab column, up and down pick a tab, and right enters its list. Up and down then find the entry, right opens its options, up and down pick one, and OK saves it. MENU backs out without saving, and a half-press of the shutter-release button drops you back to shooting (p. 78). Each press does one small thing, and that is why depth is paid for in presses.

02.Where a Setting Should Live

The camera offers four homes for a setting, and each costs a different number of presses to reach.

• A button or dial. One press or one turn, with your eye still at the viewfinder. Custom Setting f2 gives roles to 22 controls in photo mode, from the Fn1 button to the Lens control ring, and g2 does the same job for video (pp. 703-704, 748-749).
• The i menu. The i button opens a grid of 12 settings over the live picture, one grid for photo and one for video, filled through Custom Settings f1 and g1 (pp. 81, 83-84, 86).
• My Menu. Up to 20 entries taken from the other six menus, in an order you set yourself (p. 904).
• The entry's home menu. Everything else, reached by walking the tree.

The question to ask of any setting is when it changes. If it changes mid-moment, with a dancer already in the air, it belongs on a button. If it changes a few times an outing, while the subject is still in front of you, it belongs in the i menu. If it changes once a trip, at home, in the car or at the stage door, it belongs in My Menu. If it changes once in the life of the camera, like Copyright information, leave it in its home menu.

The published chapters already sort settings this way. Silent mode, from Silent Shooting, Timers and Time-Lapse, sits in my i menu for stage dance, because I may need to change it while a performance is running. Secondary slot function, which sets the second memory card's job, changes between a street day and a stage night, so it goes in My Menu.

A second question sharpens the first: what does a wrong value cost? A wrong Secondary slot function on a performance night can leave a single copy of pictures that cannot be taken again, so it belongs somewhere you look before every session.

Each user setting position on the mode dial, U1, U2 and U3, carries its own i menu and button roles (p. 142). Nikon's list of what a position stores gives examples rather than a complete inventory, and My Menu is not among them (pp. 142-143), so its absence proves little. That one My Menu serves every position is my inference, not Nikon's statement. If it holds, the list is the home for an entry every setup needs, such as Format memory card.

03.Counting the Presses

Take a change I make between sessions. After a street day, Secondary slot function reads RAW primary - JPEG secondary, which sends the unprocessed raw files to the first card and the JPEGs, the compressed format any device opens, to the second (p. 457). The next stage night needs Backup, which records every picture to both cards (p. 457). Neither kind of shooting lives on a U position in my setup, so the switch is made by hand.

Nikon's guide does not say where the cursor sits when the menus open, so a fair comparison needs a stated start. Suppose the menus open on the setup tab, where a card was last formatted, each list of entries opens at its first entry, and each list of options opens on the value currently set. The tab order comes from page 75, Secondary slot function is the fifth entry of the photo shooting menu (p. 446), and Backup sits directly above RAW primary - JPEG secondary (p. 457), so the options open on the street value and Backup is one press up. Every step below is one of the moves on pages 76 to 78.

The last three presses, opening the options, highlighting Backup and saving, are the same on every route. Everything before them is travel, so the routes differ only in how far they walk.

$$14 = 11 + 3 \qquad 8 = 5 + 3 \qquad 4 = 1 + 3$$

The tree route spends 11 of its 14 presses getting there. My Menu removes the walk down the list and shortens the walk between tabs. The button removes both, and its count does not depend on the stated start, because the jump works from wherever you are. If the jump opens the entry's options rather than only highlighting it, the button route needs three, and Nikon's one-line description of the role does not settle which (p. 711).

If the menus happen to open on My Menu with the cursor on its top entry, that route also falls to four. The button delivers that best case every time.

The gap grows with depth. Location data appears in the setup menu only when a satellite receiver is attached, so without one Battery info is the 35th entry shown (pp. 805-807). Without wrapping, that puts it $35 - 1 = 34$ presses from the top, against $4 - 1 = 3$ when it is ranked fourth in My Menu.

The shortcut has a price, paid once. From the table's start, reaching Add items takes MENU, left, down 2 to My Menu and right into it, 5 presses, because Add items heads the list while it is empty (p. 903). From there, adding Secondary slot function takes right to see the menus (1), right into the photo shooting menu, assuming it heads that list as it heads the tabs (1), down to the fifth entry (4), OK to pick it (1) and OK to place it (1), which is 8 more (pp. 904-905). The setup costs $5 + 8 = 13$ presses, and every later switch costs $14 - 8 = 6$ fewer than the tree route.

$$\frac{13}{6} \approx 2.2$$

Two switches save 12 presses, one short of the setup, so the third switch repays it, and every switch after that is pure saving.

04.Building My Menu

Add items puts an entry on the list (pp. 904-905). Press right, pick the menu that holds what you want and press right again, then highlight the entry and press OK. The camera then asks where the newcomer should sit: move it up or down among the entries already there and press OK to place it. Entries already on the list carry a tick, so nothing gets added twice by accident.

Any of the other six menus can supply entries (p. 904), but some entries carry a symbol meaning they cannot be chosen, and the guide does not list which (p. 905). Check my list below on the add screen before relying on it.

The ceiling is 20 entries (p. 904), and the guide does not say what the add screen does at the limit. Stop well short of it. The 20th entry of a full list sits $20 - 1 = 19$ presses below the first, which is the deep-menu problem again on a smaller scale.

Removing Items

Remove items clears several entries in one pass (p. 906). Tick each entry you want gone with OK or right, press the delete button, and confirm with OK. For a single entry there is a quicker way: highlight it in My Menu itself, press the delete button, and press it again at the confirmation (p. 906).

Removing an entry takes away the shortcut, not the setting. The entry stays in its home menu with whatever value it had.

Ranking Items

Rank items changes the order (p. 907). Highlight the entry to move and press OK, push it up or down, and press OK again to set it down. Repeat for any others, then press MENU to return to My Menu.

Order matters more than it looks. The top entry is the one a jump button reaches, and every entry below it costs one more press than the one above. Put the entry whose wrong value costs most at the top, then arrange the rest in the order a session uses them, so the list reads from top to bottom like a checklist.

05.Recent Settings and the Choose Tab Item

The seventh tab does not have to show your list. Choose tab offers two options, MY MENU and RECENT SETTINGS, and the default is MY MENU (pp. 903, 908). Pick RECENT SETTINGS, press OK, and the tab takes a new name and a new icon to match (p. 908).

Recent settings fills itself. Each menu entry you use goes to the top of the list, and the camera keeps the twenty most recent (p. 909). The guide speaks of menu items, and it does not say whether a change made through the i menu or a button also counts. To prune an entry, highlight it and press the delete button twice, and to switch back, pick MY MENU under Choose tab inside Recent settings (p. 909).

It needs no planning, so in the first weeks the entries that keep surfacing at the top become a draft of your My Menu. But its order changes every time you use a menu, so your thumb never learns a route, while My Menu stays where you put it. Use Recent settings for a few weeks, then switch.

Switching seems not to cost you either list, since the settings file stores the two as separate items (p. 863), though the guide does not say so outright.

06.A Button for the Top Item

Custom Settings can put My Menu under a button. In f2, which sets the roles of controls in photo mode, MY MENU opens the list and Access top item in MY MENU jumps straight to its top entry, which Nikon offers as quick access to a menu item you use often (p. 711). The video list, g2, has the same pair (p. 752).

Not every control takes every role. Nikon says the roles on offer vary with the control but prints no table of which control takes which (pp. 703-704), so the way to find out is on the camera: in f2, highlight a control, press OK and scroll its roles. A control set by mistake goes back to its default if you highlight it in the f2 list, press the delete button and confirm (p. 717).

Think of Access top item in MY MENU as a 13th i menu slot. When all 12 are full and one more setting changes during a shoot, rank it first in My Menu and give a spare control this role. That bends this chapter's rule, fairly.

I leave both roles unassigned. The controls my fingers find without looking already carry focus and white balance, as Back-Button Focus and White Balance describe, and every change on my list happens with the camera away from my eye, where four extra presses cost seconds rather than a picture.

07.My Menu, User Settings and the Settings File

Three other features touch My Menu, and each hides a trap.

The first is the U positions. A position stores the photo shooting menu (p. 142), and Secondary slot function is not among the exceptions listed on page 143, so turning the mode dial changes the second card's job. U1, saved with Overflow for birds in flight with the 180-600, brings back Overflow, and U2, saved with Backup for portraits with the Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.8 S, brings back Backup. The My Menu entry serves the P, S, A and M exposure modes on the dial and doubles as a quick check on what the dial has just done. That those four modes share one value is my inference, since no page gives them separate stores, not something Nikon states.

The second is Save/load menu settings (pp. 860-864). Its file holds the contents of My Menu, the contents of Recent settings and the Choose tab choice (p. 863), so a list built once survives a reset and can move to another Z6III, though not to a different model (p. 863). The file is written to the card in the primary slot (p. 860), its name is NCSET followed by an identifier, and a renamed file will not load (p. 864).

The third is Reset all settings, which puts every setting back at its default apart from Language and Time zone and date, clears entries you created yourself, and cannot be undone (p. 865). The guide does not say outright that this empties My Menu, but My Menu is a setting like any other, so assume it does and follow Nikon's advice to save a settings file first (p. 865). User Settings and Settings Files covers the file and the resets in full.

08.My Own List

My list has seven entries. The top four form a check before a session and the bottom three are housekeeping after one.

• Secondary slot function (p. 457). The second card's job changes with the kind of shooting, as Card Slots and File Handling sets out: Backup for stage dance, landscapes and portraits, RAW primary - JPEG secondary for street, Overflow for long days with the 180-600. It sits at the top because a wrong value on a performance night costs pictures that cannot be taken again.
• Dual-format recording PB slot (p. 790). PB stands for playback. This playback menu entry picks which card the camera shows when the two cards hold different versions of a picture, which happens only with the split options such as RAW primary - JPEG secondary (p. 790). On a street day I set it to SD card slot to cull the JPEGs in the camera, so it sits directly below the entry it depends on.
• Format memory card (p. 808). Copy the last outing's pictures off, then format before the next. It already heads the setup menu, but having it here keeps the whole check on one tab.
• Battery info (p. 855). Charge and age for the battery in the camera. It sits 34 presses down its home menu, deeper than any other entry here except Save/load menu settings at 38 (pp. 805-807).
• Save user settings (p. 810). When the setup on U1 or U2 improves, saving it again keeps the stored copy current (pp. 142-143).
• Save/load menu settings (p. 860). It follows Save user settings because the settings file carries U1 to U3 as well (p. 864), so a file written before the update holds the old setup.
• Time zone and date (p. 813). Daylight saving time twice a year, and any trip across a time zone. Setting Daylight saving time to ON moves the clock forward an hour, and a new zone moves the clock with it (p. 813), so file times keep matching local time where each picture was made.

With seven entries, the last is $7 - 1 = 6$ presses below the first.

None of the seven is a video setting, because the default video i menu already carries Frame size/frame rate and Destination (p. 84), as The i Menu explains.

09.Recommended Settings

Wildlife and birds. For birds in flight, U1 restores Overflow, so the top entry becomes a check. Perched wildlife stays on the base map, so there I set Overflow with the top entry by hand, as Card Slots and File Handling advises for any day with the 180-600. Battery info matters most here, because a dawn start leaves no time to find the spare is the worn one.

Stage dance. Confirm Backup before a night with the Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 Di III VC VXD G2, and keep Silent mode in the i menu.

Street. RAW primary - JPEG secondary at the top and SD card slot for the playback entry beneath it, both switched back before the next stage night.

Landscape and portraits. Backup, as for stage, and U2 restores it for portraits anyway.

10.Beginner Mistakes

Filling all 20 slots. A full list puts its last entry 19 presses down, the problem My Menu exists to solve. Keep it under ten entries.

Staying on Recent settings for good. Its order shifts with every menu you open. Use it for the first weeks, then copy the regulars into My Menu and switch the tab.

Putting between-shot settings in My Menu. A setting you change during a performance belongs in the i menu or on a button. My Menu is for changes made with the camera away from your eye.

Formatting the card that holds the settings file. The NCSET file is written to the primary card (p. 860), and formatting erases it along with everything else (p. 808). Copy it to a computer first.

Expecting a button role to follow you round the dial. f2 is a Custom Setting, which a U position can store (p. 142), but an f2 change reaches a U position only when you save it there with Save user settings (pp. 142-143). Make the assignment in each position where you want it, then save each one.

11.Related Chapters

• The i Menu: the twelve-slot quick menu, for settings that change a few times an outing.
• Custom Controls: f2 and g2, where a control can take the My Menu roles.
• User Settings and Settings Files: U1 to U3, the settings file and the resets.
• Menus and Controls: the tabs, buttons and dials this chapter builds on.
• Card Slots and File Handling: the choices behind the top entry on my list.
• First-Day Setup: formatting, the clock and the first look at Battery info.
• Settings Finder: every menu entry with its path and page.