Recommended Nikon Z5 Settings
With the release of the budget-friendly Nikon Z5 full-frame camera, we now have a number of different options to choose from in the Nikon mirrorless line-up. Although the Nikon Z5 is aimed to be a lower-tier camera than the Z6, its image sensor, ergonomics, and the menu system are very similar to those of its bigger brother. This also means that the complexity of the controls and the menu system is fairly similar between the two cameras. In this article, I will provide detailed information on what settings I use on the Nikon Z5 and shortly explain what some of the camera buttons and controls do. A downloadable settings file for the Z5 is also provided at the end of the article.
NOTE: This guide is applicable to Nikon Z5 firmware v1.01. If you are running an older version of Nikon firmware, please make sure to update it before you load the settings file below.
Here is a quick summary of the differences between the Z5 and Z6. First of all, despite the fact that both cameras have the same body size, the Nikon Z5 has a slightly simplified camera body, lacking a top LCD screen. Second, the Z5 has dual SD UHS-II memory card slots, while the Z6 has a single XQD / CFexpress slot. Third, there are differences in continuous shooting speed, with the Z6 managing up to 12 FPS, while the Z5 is limited to just 4.5 FPS. Fourth, the Z6 has superior video shooting capabilities, taking advantage of the full sensor width while the Z5 is limited to 1.7x crop. Fifth, the Z5 has a slightly inferior LCD screen with 1.04 million dots (2.1 million on the Z6). And lastly, there is a $600 difference in MSRP between the two cameras (although considering the current $200 promotion on the Z6, the difference is roughly $400 in the US). If you would like to find out more, check out our detailed Nikon Z5 vs Z6 article.
Before we go into the camera menu, let’s first check out the exterior controls. The Nikon Z5 has a lot of menu options, but there are some things that you can only control via specific buttons and controls.
Table of Contents
Camera Mode Dial
EVF Mode Button
Other Top Buttons
Back Buttons
Playback Menu
Photo Shooting Menu
Movie Shooting Menu
Custom Setting Menu
Setup Menu
Retouch Menu
My Menu
U1, U2 and U3 User Settings
U1 – Landscape
U2 – Portrait
U3 – Action (Sports and Wildlife)
Download Nikon Z5 Settings
Camera Mode Dial
On the top right side of the camera, you will find a standard “PASM” dial that allows changing camera modes. Aside from the standard Program Mode, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual modes, the camera also offers an “Auto” mode, as well as U1, U2 and U3 user settings that you can save your settings to (more on that below).
Nikon Z5 Top PASM Dial
Once you get to know your camera better, I would recommend exploring these user settings, as they could save you quite a bit of time when switching between different shooting environments (say when switching between photographing landscapes to fast action).
EVF Mode Button
The electronic viewfinder (EVF) mode button sits on the left side of the viewfinder. The button cycles through two modes:
Automatic display switch: This mode makes the camera use its EVF eye sensor to automatically toggle between the EVF and the LCD screen.
Viewfinder only: This mode enables only the EVF and turns off the LCD completely.
Monitor only: This mode enables only the LCD screen and the EVF is turned off completely.
Prioritize viewfinder: This mode makes the camera work similar to a DSLR camera, where the LCD screen is turned off by default and the EVF is enabled. Once you playback a picture or press one of the buttons that engages the camera menu, the LCD screen turns on.
Personally, the two modes I use the most are “Automatic display switch” and “Prioritize viewfinder”. The first one is useful for shooting with both the EVF and the LCD but does end up wasting battery life because either the EVF or the LCD is always turned on. I mostly use this mode when shooting landscapes and doing travel photography. When shooting landscapes I can use the EVF for hand-held shooting, and when I am shooting from a tripod, the LCD is automatically turned on. The “Prioritize viewfinder” mode is more practical to use in situations when I want to preserve battery life as much as possible since neither the EVF nor the LCD is engaged by default. If the EVF does not detect an object at proximity, it goes blank, while the LCD will not do anything until I fire up the camera menu or playback an image.
Other Top Buttons
On the grip of the camera, you will find three buttons: “ISO” for changing camera ISO, video recording button (with a red dot), and Exposure Compensation button. Since the video recording button does not do anything useful in stills mode, I re-programmed it to change autofocus modes (more on that below), so that I can quickly toggle between AF-S (Single Servo), AF-C (Continuous), and Manual Focus. Although one can use the “i” button to switch between autofocus modes, it simply takes longer.
The ISO button allows quick change of ISO with the rear dial, and the front dial allows switching Auto ISO on and off. Exposure Compensation works in a similar way as ISO, except the front dial duplicates the function of the rear dial to tweak your exposure.
Back Buttons
Aside from the standard buttons such as Playback, Trash and Menu, the Nikon Z5 has a few extra buttons on the back of the camera that are worth going over. The first one is the button / switch with the “DISP” label on it. The switch is for toggling between stills and video, but the DISP button is particularly important – it is used for switching between different display modes in the viewfinder and the rear LCD.
Nikon Z5 Back View
When pressing the “DISP” button, the camera cycles between the following:
Indicators on – shows camera mode, exposure information, as well as other relevant information
Simplified display – only shows metering, exposure information, number of shots remaining, and battery level on the bottom of the camera
Histogram – displays a live histogram
Virtual horizon – displays a virtual horizon in the center of the viewfinder / LCD
Information display – displays the same information as the “Info” button on DSLRs (not available in EVF)
Flash info – displays information related to a mounted flash (not available in EVF)
Here is the graphical representation of all this:
Nikon Z5 DISP Button Modes
Personally, I prefer to use an uncluttered view with minimal information when composing my images, so I use the “Simplified display”.
The other two important buttons are on the right side of the LCD. The “i” button is there for accessing some menu options, and it can be useful for doing quick adjustments to the camera. The options shown on the screen are customizable, which is great (more on how I customize this screen below).
Below the Menu button, you will also find the “Release Mode” button. If you press this button, you can rotate the real dial to toggle between different release modes such as Single, Continuous Low, Continuous High, and Self Timer (2, 5, 10 and 20s using the front dial).
All the other buttons are fairly standard, similar to those you can find on many other Nikon DSLRs.
Alright, now that we have gone through all the important buttons, let’s go through the camera menu and customize the settings.
Playback Menu
I rarely ever touch anything in the Playback menu, since that’s only used for displaying pictures on the rear LCD or the EVF. The only two settings that I ever mess with are “Playback display options” and “Rotate tall”. The “Playback display options” can be useful when reviewing images. When you press the playback button on the back of the camera, you can press up/down buttons and you will be able to see different types of information. To keep the clutter out, I have three things turned on: “Focus point”, which allows me to see where I focused, “Highlights” to show overexposure in shots (a.k.a. “blinkies”) and “Overview”, which gives me a summary of my exposure (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, etc). I always turn the “Rotate tall” setting off, because I do not want my camera to rotate vertical images to horizontal when I review them – it is much easier to rotate the camera to see a vertical image, rather than having to zoom in every single time. Everything else is the default.
Photo Shooting Menu
Let’s now go through the Shooting Menu, which is the first place that I usually go to when checking my settings. I will first provide my values, then talk about the most important settings:
Reset photo shooting menu: – –
Storage folder: default, don’t change
File naming: DSC (default), don’t change
Role played by card in Slot 2: Overflow
Choose image area
Choose image area: FX
Image quality: NEF (RAW)
Image size
JPEG/TIFF: Large
NEF (RAW): RAW L Large
NEF (RAW) recording
NEF (RAW) compression: ON (Lossless compressed)
NEF (RAW) bit depth: 14-bit
ISO sensitivity settings
ISO sensitivity: 100
Auto ISO sensitivity control: ON (see the next section below)
Maximum sensitivity: 12800
Maximum sensitivity with flash: 12800
Minimum shutter speed: Auto
White balance: AUTO (AUTO1 Keep overall atmosphere)
Set Picture Control: SD (Standard), Default values
Manage Picture Control: – –
Color space: Adobe RGB
Active D-Lighting: OFF
Long Exposure NR: ON
High ISO NR: OFF
Vignette control: OFF
Diffraction compensation: OFF
Auto distortion control: OFF
Flicker reduction shooting: ON
Metering: Matrix Metering
Flash control: – –
Flash mode: Rear-curtain sync
Flash compensation: 0.0
Focus Mode: AF-S (Single AF)
AF-area mode: Single-point AF
Vibration reduction: ON (turn off on tripod)
Auto bracketing:
Auto bracketing set: AE bracketing
Number of shots: 0F
Increment: 1.0
Multiple exposure: OFF
HDR (high dynamic range): OFF (grayed out)
Interval timer shooting: OFF
Time-lapse movie: OFF
Focus shift shooting: OFF
Silent photography: Off
While there are a lot of different settings here, do not worry – you won’t be changing many settings very often. Let’s go through some of the important settings.
First up is “Image quality”, which you should set to “RAW”. “NEF (RAW) recording” is always set on mine to 14-bit Lossless Compressed. I choose 14-bit to get the best image quality the camera can deliver and “Lossless” compression results in much smaller files than “Uncompressed”. “White Balance” is Auto and all other settings like Picture Controls, Active D-Lighting, HDR, etc. are turned off, since none of them (with the exception of “Long Exposure NR”) affect RAW images. Remember, RAW files contain non-manipulated data and require post-processing, so the above settings only impact images displayed by your camera’s LCD screen (each RAW file contains a full-size JPEG image, which is what is used to display images on the LCD) and if you use Nikon’s proprietary software like Capture NX-D, those settings can be applied to RAW images automatically. Since I use other third-party software to store and process my images, the second part does not apply to me. Everything else is turned off.
Although color space does not matter for RAW files, I use AdobeRGB because it gives a slightly more accurate histogram (since the camera shows histograms based on camera-rendered JPEG images, even if you shoot exclusively in RAW).
The big menu setting that I frequently change is “ISO sensitivity settings”. When shooting hand-held, I mostly use Auto ISO, because it is a great feature that saves me a lot of time. Instead of specifying ISO for every shot, I just have it set on Auto, with its base ISO set to 100, Maximum sensitivity set to 12800 (my personal limit for “acceptable” noise levels on the Z5) and Minimum shutter speed set to “Auto”. The “Auto” minimum shutter speed setting is great because it reads the focal length of the attached lens and automatically adjusts the minimum shutter speed to the focal length of the lens. If you have shaky hands, you can change the Minimum shutter speed Auto to be one step closer to “Faster”, which basically doubles the minimum shutter speed. For example, if you have a 50mm lens mounted on the camera, your minimum shutter speed will go from 1/50 to 1/100 of a second with one step up. If you move it all the way to the end (Faster), it will double the shutter speed again to 1/200 of a second. When using in-body image stabilization (IBIS), which is referred to as “Vibration Reduction” in the camera menu, the “Auto” setting should work quite well, although you can often safely push it to “Slower”. Unfortunately, Nikon has not yet implemented a way to automatically compensate for image stabilization, so you have to adjust this setting based on the lens you are using. When photographing landscapes or architecture with the camera mounted on a tripod, you should turn Auto ISO off and use base ISO 100 to get the highest dynamic range and lowest noise levels.
When it comes to camera metering, Matrix metering works really well in most environments and that’s what I use most of the time, but sometimes other metering modes can come in handy.
Focus mode by default is set to AF-S (Single AF). I won’t go into too much detail about each focus mode, since it is all explained in detail in this article. Here is a quick recap:
AF-S – this mode is called “Single-servo AF” and it is used only for stationary subjects that do not move. When you half-press the shutter button, autofocus lock on the subject and if the subject moves, the focus will not change, resulting in a blurry picture. Only use this mode for photographing stationary subjects (landscapes, architecture, etc) and when shooting in extremely low-light situations and need the camera to engage the AF-assist lamp.
AF-C – known as “Continuous-servo AF” in Nikon’s lingo, this setting is used for photographing moving subjects. When you half-press the shutter button and your subject moves, the camera will re-acquire focus.
MF – the last mode is “Manual focus”. In this mode, autofocus is turned off completely.
Other menu items such as Multiple exposure, HDR, Interval timer shooting, Time-lapse movie and Focus shift shooting are all used to engage specific tools and effects. I am not going to go through these settings since they go over the scope of this article.
The last menu item is “Silent photography”. You should keep this turned off by default, because turning it on will engage the electronic shutter (and you should only use the electronic shutter for non-moving subjects).
Movie Shooting Menu
Reset movie shooting menu: – –
File naming: DSC
Destination: Slot 1-
Choose image area: FX
Frame size / frame rate: 1080 p24 (1920×1080); 24p
Movie quality: HIGH
Movie file type: MOV
ISO sensitivity settings
Maximum sensitivity: 25600
Auto ISO control (mode M): ON
ISO sensitivity (mode M): 100
White Balance: Auto1 (Same as photo settings)
Set Picture Control: Same as photo settings
Manage Picture Control: – –
Active D-Lighting: OFF
High ISO NR: Normal
Vignette control: Normal
Diffraction compensation: ON
Auto distortion control: ON
Flicker reduction: AUTO
Metering: Matrix metering
Focus mode: AF-F (full-time AF)
AF-area mode: Auto-area AF
Vibration Reduction: ON Normal
Electronic VR: ON
Microphone sensitivity: Manual 10
Attenuator: OFF
Frequency response: WIDE
Wind noise reduction: OFF
Headphone volume: 10
Timecode: – –
I am not going to go through the movie recording features, because it highly depends on what you are trying to do. Some of the features won’t work depending on what FPS you are going to shoot, so if you see anything grayed out or not working, you might need to switch to different video sizes in order to enable them.
Custom Setting Menu
This is where a lot of people get lost, since there are so many different settings. Here are the settings that I personally use:
Autofocus
AF-C priority selection: Release
AF-S priority selection: Focus
Focus tracking with lock-on: Blocked shot AF response: 3
Auto-area AF face/eye detection: Face and eye detection on
Focus points used: ALL
Store points by orientation: Yes
AF activation: ON – please read below on this setting
Limit AF-area mode selection: (all checked, default)
Focus point wrap-around: OFF
Focus point options
Manual focus mode: ON
Dynamic-area AF assist: ON
Low-light AF: ON
Built-in AF-assist illuminator: ON
Metering/exposure
EV steps for exposure cntrl: 1/3
Easy exposure compensation: OFF
Center-weighted area: 12mm
Fine-tune optimal exposure: – –
Timers/AE lock
Shutter-release button AE-L: OFF
Self-timer
Self-timer delay: 2s
Number of shots: 1
Interval between shots: 0.5s
Power off delay: 10s, 1m, 4s, 30s
Shooting/display
CL mode shooting speed: 3 fps
Max. continuous release: 100
Sync. release mode options: Sync
Exposure delay mode: OFF
Shutter type: Auto
File number sequence: ON
Apply settings to live view: ON
Framing grid display: ON
Peaking highlights: Peaking Level -> 1 (low sensitivity), Peaking highlight color: Red
View all in continuous mode: ON
Bracketing/flash
Flash sync speed: 1/200*
Flash shutter speed: 1/60
Exposure comp. for flash: Entire frame
Auto ISO sensitivity control: Subject and background
Modeling flash: ON
Auto bracketing (Mode M): Flash/speed
Bracketing order: Under > MTR > over
Controls
Customize i menu
#1 Top – Focus Mode
#2 Bottom – AF Area Mode
#3 Top – Metering
#4 Bottom – Auto bracketing
#5 Top – Release mode
#6 Bottom – Exposure delay mode
#7 Top – Vibration reduction
#8 Bottom – Long Exposure NR
#9 Top – Silent photography
#10 Bottom – Shutter type
#11 Top – Apply settings to live view
#12 Bottom – Interval timer shooting
Custom control assignment
Fn1 button: AE lock (Hold)
Fn2 button: Metering
AF-ON button: AF-ON
Sub-selector: Focus point selection
Sub-selector center: Select center focus point
Movie record button: Focus mode/AF-area mode
Lens Fn button: AE/AF lock
Lens Fn2 button: AF-ON
Lens control ring: Focus (M/A)
OK button
Shooting mode: Zoom on/off -> 1:1 (100%)
Playback mode: Zoom on/off -> 1:1 (100%)
Shutter spd & aperture lock: – – (OFF / OFF)
Customize command dials: All default
Release button to use dial: OFF
Reverse indicators: – 0 +
Movie
Customize i menu: All default
Custom control assignment: All default
OK Button: Select center focus point
AF Speed: 0
AF tracking sensitivity: 4