First Setup
What should you change on a brand-new a7 IV before your first shoot?
Format the card in the camera
Formatting builds the folder structure the camera expects and clears a card that has lived in other devices. Pick the slot, press Enter. For a full format instead of a quick one, press the Delete button on the format screen.
Shoot RAW, at the smart size
Set File Format to RAW. Then set RAW File Type to Lossless Comp (L): full RAW quality, no information thrown away, in a smaller file than Uncompressed. Compressed is smaller still — about half the size of Uncompressed — and is the pick only when card space matters more than the last of the quality.
Confirm SteadyShot is on
On for normal lenses — the camera reads the focal length itself. Shooting a fully manual lens? Open SteadyShot Adjust. in the same group, switch it to Manual, and dial in the lens focal length (8–1000mm), or the stabilization will work against you.
Save everything to Memory 1
Register the setup you just built to slot 1. From now on, the mode dial’s 1 position is your known-good camera — after any reset, firmware update, or borrowed-body detour, one turn of the dial restores it. The body holds 3 sets per mode; M1–M4 live on the card.
Put the deep settings one press away
Add the items you will revisit — Format, Pixel Mapping, Custom Key/Dial Set. — to My Menu (up to 42 items). The a7 IV’s menu is deep; your five items should not be.
Do the five steps now, in order, then turn the mode dial to 1 and confirm every setting stuck. That dial position is your camera from today on.