Recommended Nikon Z9 Settings

Spencer Cox

The Nikon Z9 (read our review) is Nikon’s most complex camera yet, with a gigantic menu and almost unlimited customization. If you just got the Z9, where do you even start? In this article, I will provide detailed information on what settings I personally use on the Nikon Z9 and explain how to set your camera optimally.

Of course, there were one perfect way to set the Nikon Z9, it wouldn’t have so many menu options in the first place. Chances are that the best settings for you won’t look exactly like mine. But this should at least give you a good starting point if you’re running through the Z9’s menu for the first time. I also tried to provide context behind any important decisions that I made.

I’ll start with potentially the most confusing part of setting the Nikon Z9: shooting menu banks and custom settings banks.

Nikon Z9 Menu Banks and Custom Settings Banks

If you’ve been following Nikon for a while, you’ve probably heard of the polarizing menu banks they keep adding to their advanced cameras. Although many photographers dislike menu banks, they aren’t not so bad once you understand them.

Essentially, menu banks allow you to set up the Nikon Z9’s menu up to four different ways. You can label these four menus (for instance, landscape, wildlife, portrait, macro) and switch between them quickly to change the state of the Z9 based on what subject you’re photographing.

The Z9 has two menu banks: shooting menu banks and custom settings banks. These correspond to two of the Nikon Z9’s menu pages. There’s also an option in the photo shooting menu called “Extended menu banks.” I’ll go through each of these features separately.

1. Shooting Menu Banks

The Photo Shooting Menu on the Nikon Z9 is where many of your basic camera settings like image quality, ISO sensitivity, focus mode, and vibration reduction are stored. (You can see the whole list of Photo Shooting Menu items later in this article.) With a few small exceptions, everything in the Photo Shooting Menu is saved to your Shooting Menu bank.

To save a Shooting Menu bank, the process is easy. First, go through the whole Photo Shooting Menu and set everything how you want for the bank. For example, if you were creating a “landscapes” Shooting Menu Bank, you could set ISO sensitivity to 64, turn off Auto ISO, and turn on long exposure noise reduction. When you’ve finished setting everything in the menu to your preferences, go to “Shooting Menu Bank” at the top, click right, and you can save or rename the bank.

Even though the menu banks on the Nikon Z9 can be renamed from their default “A, B, C, D” names, I still recommend trying to keep things simple. It’s easy to make four different menu banks with slight changes between them, and then gradually forget all the differences if you don’t use most of the banks day-to-day.

To start, I recommend renaming bank A to “Landscape” and bank B to “Action.” For banks C and D, use them as backups. For some reason, Nikon doesn’t have a “revert” option in the menu banks that restores your originally-chosen values. But if you duplicate your landscape and action settings to banks C and D (and then never open C and D to change them), you can restore from those backups at any point.

There aren’t huge differences between my Shooting Menu Banks for landscape versus action – just small things like AF-S versus AF-C and Auto ISO off versus on. But it does save some time if I’m jumping from subject to subject. In the list of recommended settings later in this article, I’ve noted each time that I set something differently for the landscape bank versus the action bank.

Advanced photographers can and often should do more than a basic “landscape/action” dichotomy here, to tailor the Z9 exactly to your requirements. For instance, you can set menu bank C or D to capture JPEGs with your chosen Picture Control settings to output quickly to a broadcast network to their exact specifications. But if you don’t have any specific requirements like that already, landscape/action is a good place to start.

2. Extended Menu Banks

By default, the shooting menu banks don’t include exposure information like your shutter speed, aperture, and flash settings, since they only cover the Z9’s shooting menu. However, if you turn on extended menu banks, all of this exposure information is also saved in your banks.

Personally, I turn this setting on, but it’s not usually a big deal either way. Remember that Nikon’s menu banks don’t revert to the values you saved anyway – so if you set f/11 as the default aperture in the landscape bank, then change it to f/1.8 for shooting Milky Way, the next time you open the landscape bank, it will be back at f/1.8.

Still, I generally use the same settings for landscape photography day-to-day, and the same general settings for wildlife and other action photography. I like that the Z9 goes back to my last-used exposure settings for landscapes in the landscape bank, and vice versa in the action bank. I suspect that flash photographers will find it even more important to keep the extended menu banks on. But photographers who prize simplicity may prefer to leave this off, so that their exposure settings don’t change as they switch from bank to bank.

3. Custom Settings Banks

The final option in the Nikon Z9 for menu banks is in the Custom Settings menu (AKA the one with the pencil icon). Just like the Photo Shooting Menu banks from earlier, you have four bank options for the Custom Settings menu. These do not need to be associated with your Shooting Menu banks. For instance, you can create a Custom Settings bank that enables the dim, red-light mode on the Z9’s LCD and turns on Starlight View, switching the camera to a useful state for astrophotography. Some photographers prefer to keep the Custom Settings banks aligned with their Shooting Menu banks for simplicity’s sake, though – like using the same Landscape/Action dichotomy here.

Since these work exactly the same as the shooting menu banks that I’ve already discussed, just with the pencil menu, I won’t spend much more time on them here. But there is one important thing to mention: I strongly discourage you from using different button assignments with different banks. If you do, your muscle memory can get completely screwed up.

I find that I rarely need to change anything in the Custom Settings Menu for day-to-day photography. There would be no difference between my usual Custom Settings for landscape versus action photography, for example. So, most of the time, I stay in Custom Settings Bank A, which I’ve renamed to “Norm.”

For my own photography, the only other Custom Settings Menu bank that I’ve made is for astrophotography; I’ve renamed Bank B “Astro.” Even then, I only have four different settings in the Astro menu bank: Starlight View, Warm Display Colors, and LCD illumination are all on rather than off, for obvious reasons. Lastly, Built-in AF-assist illuminator is off rather than on, because it doesn’t help with focusing on the stars, and if there are other astrophotographers near me, the focusing light from my Z9 can ruin their photos.

NIKON Z 9 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 24mm, ISO 500, 900 seconds, f/4.0

I know that other photographers find the Custom Settings Menu bank to be more useful than this, or that they would set it very differently for something like landscape versus sports photography even though I wouldn’t. For me, it’s just a small time-saver when I need to quickly get my Z9 ready for astrophotography.

With that, let’s look at the Nikon Z9’s menu items one by one.

Photo Shooting Menu

A few of the settings above merit a more detailed discussion. First, some photographers will prefer to set “overflow” rather than “backup” for the role played by the second memory card. CFEXpress cards aren’t cheap, and because they are more durable than basic SD cards, some photographers may wonder if the era of needing a backup is over. I still think it’s worth setting this to backup, though, because of the chance that one day you might lose a card or erase it accidentally. It’s not a high chance, but the horror of losing a photo is never worth risking.

As for the “RAW recording” setting, the Z9 has three RAW recording modes, and all of them are viable choices: lossless compressed, high efficiency star, and high efficiency. In our Nikon Z9 review, we found no image quality difference between lossless and high efficiency star files. We only found a very slight loss of dynamic range with standard high efficiency files. To save memory card space and improve your buffer, high efficiency star or high efficiency is the way to go. However, those RAW files are incompatible with some RAW processing software, especially more obscure post-processing software. If you need maximum compatibility, go with lossless compressed.

“ISO sensitivity settings” is one of the most important menu options on the Z9 and most Nikon cameras, since it covers the camera’s Auto ISO behavior. Auto ISO, combined with aperture priority mode, is arguably the best and fastest way to set the Z9 for a lot of situations, especially wildlife and handheld photography. (See more in our article on Auto ISO.) I keep Auto ISO off for landscapes because I’m always shooting from a tripod. I leave it on for wildlife photography, with a fast minimum shutter speed to ensure that my subject remains sharp.

Most of the following settings, like vignetting and diffraction compensation, only affect JPEGs and not RAW files. However, Adobe and Nikon software uses some of this information when importing a photo for post-processing. For instance, by keeping vignetting correction to High, Lightroom automatically applies a vignetting profile to the Z9’s files. (You can add vignetting back manually without a problem, but it’s hard to apply manual corrections that are as good as the automatic profile.) Long Exposure Noise Reduction does impact RAW files, which is why I leave it on.

AF area mode is the final setting I’ll mention in detail here. It’s possible to set this with a button rather than menu diving, but either way, you’ll be changing this pretty frequently if you’re photographing sports or wildlife. The autofocus page in our Z9 review explains the considerations behind some of the different options.

NIKON Z 9 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 98mm, ISO 2800, 1/8000, f/5.6

Video Recording Menu

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 video file type 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. Note, however, that the various Picture Control, high ISO corrections, and so on, will affect video files (other than RAW video) and are important to set according to the demands of your project.

Custom Settings 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:

That’s a massive number of settings, especially once you include all the custom button assignments!

One important thing to discuss is the AF-On button. For advanced photography, it is usually far preferable to autofocus via the AF-On button rather than half-pressing the shutter button. The first thing I do upon getting a new camera is disable autofocus from the shutter button, and assign it somewhere else. Since the Z9 already has a dedicated AF-On button, that’s the focusing method you should use instead. For more information on why back-button focus is so important, read our article here.

Second, I’d like to go through some of my custom control assignments. These are the most important and most personal part of the Nikon Z9, and you definitely may choose to assign different functions than I did. The general recommendations I’d make are as follows:

I assigned Fn1 and Fn3 to “Recall shooting functions (hold),” which is a useful tool for quickly setting the Z9 to a pre-determined state. It’s similar to a menu bank in a way. This button resets the Z9 temporarily until you press the button again. I use it to rapidly change my Z9 to wildlife photography settings that I know are guaranteed to capture a sharp subject, albeit at a high ISO, with a shutter speed of 1/4000 second and a burst of 20 FPS. My chosen aperture of f/0.95 under “Recall shooting functions (hold)” just means that the lens will switch to its widest aperture setting. You can set “Recall shooting functions (hold)” however you want, though – for instance, to enable the Z9’s 30 FPS mode and pre-shoot burst.

The last one worth mentioning is my setting for Fn2, “AF-area mode + AF-ON.” When I hold down Fn2, the Z9 treats it as the AF-On button, but it also switches quickly to my chosen AF area mode. It’s a quick way to revert to your favorite AF area mode for unexpected action without missing a beat.

NIKON Z 9 + VR 200-500mm f/5.6E @ 500mm, ISO 4000, 1/800, f/5.6 © Libor Vaicenbacher

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 three settings that I ever mess with are “Playback display options,” “Picture Review,” and “Rotate tall.”

The “Playback display options” is useful because it lets you choose what information to see when reviewing a photo. For instance, you can see the exposure settings or histogram of a photo by pressing up/down on the direction pad to scroll through different views. I leave the following options turned on: “Focus point,” which allows me to see where I focused; “Highlights” to show overexposure in shots (a.k.a. “blinkies”); “RGB histogram” to analyze potential exposure issues by each color channel; “Overview,” which gives me a summary of my exposure (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, etc); and “None/Picture Only.”

As for the “Picture Review” setting, I keep this off. I don’t want the Z9 popping up the photo I just took every time. For some genres, like landscape photography, it’s not a big deal – but if you’re photographing action, automatic picture review can be pretty annoying.

The last Playback menu option that is important is “Rotate tall,” and I always keep this setting off. I don’t want my Z9 to rotate vertical images to fit a skinny part of the LCD when I review photos – it is much easier to rotate the camera to see a vertical image.

Everything else is pretty unimportant. You can leave it at the defaults or change it if you happen to have a preference.

Setup Menu

These settings are mostly one-time things that you’ll set when you first get your Z9 and never mess with again. For example, language, time zone, and date are all changed in the setup menu.

I would put monitor brightness into your “My Menu” for quick access, or (as I mentioned above) add it to one of the i button options. Keep viewfinder brightness at Auto.

One interesting new option on the Z9 is “Finder display size (photo Lv)” which can shrink the size of the viewfinder image. If you wear glasses, you may want to select “small” so that you can more comfortably see the entire viewfinder image.

I highly recommend switching “save focus position” to ON. This way, when you turn off and on the Z9, it will remember how far away the lens has focused, and reset to that point. (Otherwise, the lens automatically resets to approximately infinity focus each time the camera is turned off, which is not very useful behavior.)

You’ll definitely want to keep the “Sensor shield behavior at power off” option set to ON, so that the dust curtain on the Z9 protects your sensor as you change lenses.

An interesting thing about the Nikon Z9’s lack of a physical shutter curtain is that it is a very quiet camera. You may want to add a shutter sound (found under “Camera sounds”) so that there’s an audible confirmation each time you take a photo. Alternatively, you can embrace the Z9’s nature and keep “Silent mode” on. These don’t affect image quality, just user experience.

Most photographers will want to leave “Touch controls” turned on, and if you do, I recommend keeping glove mode turned on. It makes the Z9’s touchscreen a bit more sensitive, which I didn’t find bothersome in everyday usage, and was helpful when I wore thin gloves.

“Location data” is another useful setting in the Setup menu. When this is on, it adds GPS data to every photo you take with the Z9. I find this very useful as a landscape photographer, although it drains a small amount of battery life, and some privacy-conscious photographers will surely want to keep it turned off.

I recommend keeping “Energy saving (photo mode)” on most of the time to add some battery life, although it can lower the refresh rate of the display, so for the smoothest performance, leave it on.

Finally, turn “Slot empty release lock” to LOCK! This way, the Z9 won’t take photos without a memory card, which is helpful because you’ll immediately know that something’s wrong (i.e. that you need to insert a memory card).

Network Menu

The Nikon Z9 has a new menu called the “Network Menu” that exists to help connect your Z9 to other devices more easily. If you’re not actively trying to connect the Z9 to something like a smartphone, a computer, or another camera, the only setting you’ll ever need in the Network Menu is “Airplane Mode,” which disables the camera’s WiFi and Bluetooth features.

My Menu

If there are any menu settings that you intend to access frequently, My Menu is a great place to put them. I add ISO sensitivity settings, Starlight View, Monitor brightness, Video file type, and a few other options here that I want to be able to access quickly. Since most of the Z9’s settings can be accessed with a dedicated button, or at most with the i button, I recommend keeping My Menu slimmed-down to only a few options for the sake of convenience.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found this guide useful in setting up your Nikon Z9! Let me know in the comments if you have questions about any of these settings or why I chose to set them up this way.

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