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Canon EOS R10
Canon · EOS R10 · Free lesson

First Setup

What should you change on a brand-new EOS R10 before your first shoot?

https://camerasdecoded.com/camera-select/canon/r10/first-setup.html
THE ANSWER
Format the card in the camera — low level format if 4K is in your future — shoot RAW (or C-RAW at about half the file size), know that stabilization lives in your lens and not in this body, then register the whole setup to C1.
Format: Set-up → Format card · Image quality: RAW · IS: IS (Image Stabilizer) mode → IS mode (lens IS) · Save: Custom shooting mode (C1, C2) → Register settings → C1
Free lesson — the guided run walks every step.
STEP 1

Format the card in the camera

MENU→Set-up→Format card

Formatting builds the folder structure the camera expects — and on this body it matters more than most, because there is one slot: a single SD card, UHS-II supported, holding the only copy of every frame. Shooting 4K video? Tick Low level format: Canon’s own manual calls for it before 4K recording, and it clears every recordable sector.

Know this: formatting erases everything on the card — including protected images. Format before the shoot, never after it.
STEP 2

Shoot RAW — know C-RAW

MENU→Shooting→Image quality

Set Image quality to RAW for the full file. Canon also offers C-RAW (Compact RAW): the manual states it produces RAW images with smaller file sizes than RAW — Canon’s own approximate sizes are 27.0 MB for RAW and 14.0 MB for C-RAW, the same 6000×4000 pixels at about half the card bill. Default to RAW; reach for C-RAW when card space is the constraint. And remember the sensor: APS-C, so every lens frames at about 1.6× its marked length by Canon’s own specification.

Approx. file size per photo (Canon’s figures)
RAW27.0 MB
C-RAW14.0 MB
STEP 3

The stabilizer is in the lens

MENU→Shooting→IS (Image Stabilizer) mode

This body has no in-body stabilization — the manual’s words are “image stabilization by the lens.” A lens with its own IS switch rules. A stabilized lens without a switch needs IS mode set to On here, or its stabilizer never engages. A lens with no IS at all gets no help for stills; for movies, Movie Digital IS can stabilize even a non-IS lens.

STEP 4

Register everything to C1

MENU→Set-up→Custom shooting mode (C1, C2)→Register settings

Canon’s saved setup is a physical dial position — and this body has two of them, C1 and C2. Register the setup you just built to C1; after any reset or borrowed-body detour, one turn of the dial restores it. Leave Auto update set. off for now, so experiments in other modes never silently rewrite your C1.

TRY IT NOW

Do the four steps now, in order, then turn the mode dial to C1 and confirm every setting stuck. That dial position is your camera from today on.