Setting Up Your Three User Modes

The GR IV has three custom slots on the mode dial, U1, U2, and U3, that store a complete configuration: mode, aperture, shutter, ISO behavior, focus method, and image look. Set these up once and you can switch your entire camera between three completely different shooting situations with a flick of the dial. This is how you stay fast when the light changes. Here are the three I want you to build.

U1, Daylight Black-and-White Street

This is your bread and butter, the configuration for a sunny or overcast day walking the city.

• Mode: TAv
• Aperture: f/8
• Shutter: 1/250
• ISO: Auto, range 200 to 3200
• Focus: snap focus at 2m, Full Press Snap on
• Image Control: Hi-Contrast Black and White
• File: DNG plus JPEG, with the JPEG set to the black-and-white look

This is the snap-focus street recipe with a contrasty monochrome JPEG so you see the world in black and white as you shoot, while the DNG raw file keeps every option open for editing later. Flick to U1 and you are ready for Via Zamboni at noon.

U2, Low Light and Night

When the sun drops, snap focus stops working, because you need a wide aperture and that collapses the depth of field. So U2 is a different animal.

• Mode: Av at f/2.8, or Manual if the light is very uneven
• ISO: Auto, range up to 25600
• Focus: single-point autofocus, using the new phase-detect system
• Minimum shutter: 1/60

Here you open the lens wide to gather light, let ISO climb high because grain beats blur, and trust the autofocus to find your subject in the dark. The minimum shutter of 1/60 is a compromise: low enough to keep ISO sane, high enough that a still subject stays sharp. For a moving subject at night you will still get some blur, which is often beautiful.

U3, Color and Everyday

Not every photograph is a serious black-and-white street frame. Sometimes you are documenting a meal, a friend, a bright afternoon, and you want color.

• Mode: Av at f/5.6
• ISO: Auto
• Focus: autofocus
• Image Control: Standard, or Positive Film for richer, slide-like color

f/5.6 gives a little subject separation while keeping enough depth of field for casual shooting. Positive Film is Ricoh's lovely punchy color profile, great for the warm ochre and red brick of Bologna in afternoon light.

How to save a User mode

Set the camera up exactly as you want it, every relevant setting. Then go into the menu, find the option to register the current settings to a User mode, U1, U2, or U3, and save. The camera memorizes the whole state. From then on, turning the mode dial to that slot restores everything at once. Some settings, like exposure compensation, can be set to reset or persist; choose persistence off for U1 so you start fresh each time.

Assigning to the dial

The three User positions sit on the physical mode dial alongside P, Av, TAv, and M. Once saved, switching is a single turn of the dial with your thumb, no menus. Practice the switch until it is muscle memory: U1 for the day, U2 when the light fades, U3 when you want color. The whole point is that changing your entire approach to the light takes half a second, so the camera never holds you back when the city changes around you.