This page answers the question of how I set up my Sony A7R VI for underwater photography. Much of this advice will be widely applicable for many other Sony cameras, particularly the Sony A7R V and A7 V. If you plan to follow it, I’d recommend first reading the whole page first, to understand why I make these changes, before going through and applying these changes to your camera.

Please note that I am still photographer and these settings are specifically for still shooting. I do not consider video or hybrid shooting in my set up. I use a Nauticam housing for my camera, and some of the choices, such as the use of certain custom buttons are based around ease of access of particular controls through that housing (but most of it is applicable to all housings). Also note that I prioritise the positions of the controls I change most frequently, which relates to the types of underwater photography that I do.

Finally, I am first publishing these notes in June 2026, shortly after the camera started shipping. Once I have shot the camera more extensively underwater I will record a video talking through these choices in more detail (which I’ll add here) and may tweak some of the advice on this page.

Below is a list of my generic settings for underwater shooting. Of course, I often deviate away from many of these, and set the controls I most regularly need to do so on custom buttons, in the Function Menu and in My Menu for easy access. Furthermore, the A7R VI also allows us to remember and change settings using specific Shooting Modes, which I also use for optimising the camera for different types of underwater shooting (which I also cover at the bottom of the page).

GENERAL SETTINGS

I only shoot RAW underwater. I shoot RAW, lossless compressed, in Adobe 1998 colour space. I mostly shoot with the EVF (viewfinder) and have VF Display Quality on High, standard frame rate. I would always prioritise quality of the EVF over battery life.

I typically use Single Shooting in the Drive Mode and have Auto Review on 2 seconds. When shooting with flash underwater (a light that you cannot see before you shoot) I believe it is very valuable to be constantly checking the light in my images, which is why I have Auto Review on as a default. Also because most underwater photos are taken with flash, I usually have Settings Effect set to Off (to give me the best view of my composition through the viewfinder). However, when shooting available light images, I turn Settings Effect On and Auto Review Off (so that I can see what I am going to get before shooting, and therefore will have no need to review). When shooting action or blackwater, making use of Continuous Shooting in the Drive Mode, I also turn Auto Review Off, so I am not interrupted until the encounter is over.

AUTOFOCUS

I use Continuous AF autofocus mode (because neither my subject nor I will ever be completely still in the ocean) and mostly have AF With Shutter set to On. There are many occasions where I change AF With Shutter to Off and shoot with “back-button” focus, using the AF-On lever, such as when shooting certain images (split levels, pelagic action) or at times when AF is struggling (inside a dark wreck, shooting up the reef into the sun). I use Wide AF most commonly for wide angle (because it just works with point and shoot simplicity) and also less commonly Zone and Expand Spot Tracking. For macro shooting I most commonly use Tracking Spot Small for macro (and Spot Small for precise focus on non-moving subjects, and often use Wide or Zone for fish portraits in conjunction with Subject Recognition). I normally use Subject Recognition for macro, but rarely for wide angle. I also have two custom AF shapes for certain shots – basically a horizontal line and a vertical line of active sensors (the horizontal for animals on the sand in muck diving and for focusing underwater in split levels).

I personally don’t use focus gears and DMF, although I know some love it. I use peaking with MF vintage lenses (I only use a Trioplan 100mm, currently) but find it doesn’t work well with my wide angle MF Nikonos 15mm, and instead prefer to focus, shoot, review – zoom in, re-focus when necessary.

JUMP SETTINGS

My jump settings for wide angle (blue water, sunny day) are ISO 400, f/13, 1/125th, and macro are ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/250th. With my Sony A1 I shoot my white balance mostly on fixed K temperature tuned to my expected strobe output (usually 4800K with my Retra Pro Max 2 with warming diffusers), the A7R VI promises better Auto WB, so I will try this extensively in the hope it works or otherwise go back to a fixed K. I use UW Auto WB when shooting available light, for blackwater (where it works surprisingly well) and when shooting large scenes with just a kiss of flash or where flash will struggle to reach the subject.

LENS OPTIONS:

The reason we choose to customise our cameras away from the default settings is to make them easier to use in our specific branch of photography. Photographers often obsess that if they are not customising everything then they are somehow missing out. Not so. Remember that Sony, who designed and made your camera, put a lot of time thinking about the best place to put things.

Furthermore, for customisation to be beneficial you must build the muscle memory of where everything is through your housing. So don’t change things each time you read a new article, otherwise you will never remember where you left them! Below is how I set up my Sony Menus – which works brilliantly for me.

My Menu & Function Menu

The My Menu in the Menu System and Function Menu accessed via the Fn button are the two easiest places to find important functions on the camera that I change regularly. So I fill both of these with features I need to access most often, to save me navigating through the menus to find them. I put some important features in both – I don’t need to remember exactly what is in here – only that if I want to change something then it is likely here!

Page 1 of My Menu contains:

Auto Review
AF w/ Shutter
Live View Display Set (Settings Effect On/Off)
Shutter Type (Mechanical/Electronic)
Flash Mode (Front/Rear)
Wireless Flash (For HSS activation)
Creative Look (used to switch to Black and White)

My Function Menu (for still photography) contains:

Subject Recognition in AF (on/off)
Focus Area
Wireless Flash
Subject Recognition Target
Pre-Capture (never really used UW)
Flash Mode
White Balance
Shutter Type
Live View Display Set
ISO
Creative Look
Shooting Mode

I know that there is repetition here. That is because in the real world, when I want to make changes quickly underwater, I want options to be in the first place I look! So I put the important ones in both places!

The customisable buttons on a camera provide the fastest (Menu free) access to important settings. So by definition these should be settings that you will want to adjust quickly, right in the middle of shooting. We change these in the Custom Key/Dial Set for still photography (the little camera logo at the start of the line shows they are for stills). You can use these to open up Menu options, like in the previous section, but it is more useful to set them to Toggle options, that allow you to just press the one button to switch between options. Some of these buttons are easier to reach through the housing than others, so I put the controls that I most regularly want to change, on the easiest buttons to reach. The important controls are clustered on the right side (I regularly hold my housing with just one hand).

Confusingly, the morons at Sony ergonomics number the buttons C1, C2, C3 etc on the back of the camera, but in the menu to set their function, they list them numbered in different order, for example C3 is option 4! I will refer to the button numbering in the Sony Menus below, rather than the numbers on the button on the back of the camera.

My Photo Custom Key/Dial Settings on the Rear 1 of the camera are:

1. White Balance (this is the button marked AEL – to change WB)
2. AF-On (this is the button marked AF-On – for back button focus accessed by lever on Nauticam housing)
3. Switch Drive Mode (this is button C1 – this allows me to switch from single to multiple shooting – turn off all the bracketing options in the menu, so there is less to scroll through)
4. Finder/Monitor Select (this is button C3 – inside a housing cameras cannot automatically switch between EVF and LCD, so most people set this button to make the change manually)
5. Flash Mode (this is the Delete button)

Notes. Some underwater photographers (especially contest photographers who don’t want to crop) like to have FF/APS-C toggle on the back of the cameras, I don’t like this setting as I find it too easy to leave it on by accident, but button 3 (C1) is a good place for it. Topside nature photographers definitely like having Pre-capture and Speed Boost as options on these buttons, but I don’t see these as being routinely valuable underwater. But if you do extensive topside shooting you may choose to put these on prominent buttons.

I don’t change the Rear 2 set.

My Photo Custom Key/Dial Settings on the Top of the camera are:

1. Subject Recognition Off/On Toggle (this is the record button and is on a easy to reach lever on the Nauticam housing – letting me easily engage and disengage Subject Recognition in the middle of shooting)
2. Switch Focus Area (this is C2 – lets me toggle through focus areas, again reduce the number in the menu to the ones you really use)
3. Illumination On (no use inside a housing, but I like this feature when the camera is not in the housing). I suspect few housings will provide access to this button.

The Sony A7R VI introduces 10 customisable Shooting Modes when the camera Mode Dial is set to *. These are designed so we can easily recall and load our preferred settings for different types of shooting. I see this as mostly something I would change pre-dive, when say changing lens from Wide Angle to Macro. I currently have 8 set. There are some I would switch mid-dive, such as when jumping from shooting a wreck with strobes (WIDEANGLE) and then wanting to available light, black and white shots (B&W). But mostly these are simply about recalling your usually settings when setting out to do a particular type of underwater photography.

Importantly, you don’t need to set these up when you first get the camera. Instead, think of them as bookmarks. Go and shoot with the camera and when you have done a few wide angle dives and have everything dialled in, then save this as a Shooting Mode for Wide Angle. Once you have these you can either keep them static, a starting point you are familiar with, or you could use them on a trip to resave your latest settings at the end of say a macro dive, so you can pull them straight back up when you next come back to shooting macro.

The Shooting Modes are simply a feature to help you. They don’t give the camera superpowers! So don’t worry if you choose not to use this memory aid. You can ignore this whole section of the page, and just follow the Menu and Button Customisation above.

There are also 2 additional customisable modes 1 & 2 on the Mode dial. I choose not to use these as I prefer them all being named and in one place. Also I never like moving the Mode dial in a housing – because I can’t see exactly how it is lined up. But I could imagine normal people (without my phobia) using 1 and 2 for Wide and Macro and then using the * Mode options for the more specific variations.

Just as a reminder, ti access the shooting modes you need the cameras in the * mode on the Mode dial. And then you can navigate the modes through the Menu, or using the shortcut already set on the Function Menu (see above).

My Shooting Modes

MR1 (WIDEANGLE)

MR2(MACRO)

MR3(AVAILABLE)

MR4(B&W)

MR5 (UW ACTION)

MR6 (BLACKWATR)

MR7 (SPLITS)

MR8 (WILDLIFE)

I am thinking of adding EMWL and Vintage Lens one, but it did not seem a good idea to fill all 10 up straight away. I decided against setting a green water/dark water wide angle options (with higher ISO and lower shutterspeeds), but you might wish to. Exposure setting in blue water, normal diving depths on a sunny day are very consistent and having jump settings make sense. Darker conditions (green water, deep water, murky water, overhead environments) deviate from this by variable amounts, and jump settings are less valuable. My expectation when diving in darker conditions is simply to load my WIDEANGLE Shooting Mode and then adjust my exposure settings manually before the dive.

MR1 (WIDEANGLE)

This mode is a Manual mode for wide angle photography with flash. Jump settings of 1/125th @ f/13, ISO 400. AF Wide Area, AF with Shutter On, Subject Recognition Off, Mechanical Shutter, WB 4800K, Single Shot drive mode, Settings Effect Off, Auto Review On.

MR2(MACRO)

This mode is a Manual mode for macro photography with flash. Jump settings of 1/250th @ f/6.3, ISO 100. AF Tracking Small Spot, AF with Shutter On, Subject Recognition On (Animal/Bird), Mechanical Shutter, WB Auto, Single Shot drive mode, Settings Effect Off, Auto Review On.

MR3(AVAILABLE)

This mode is a Manual mode for wide angle photography without flash. Jump settings of 1/125th @ f/13, ISO 400. AF Wide Area, AF with Shutter On, Subject Recognition Off, Electronic Shutter, WB UW Auto, Single Shot drive mode, Settings Effect On, Auto Review Off.

MR4(B&W)

This mode is a Manual mode for wide angle photography without flash in black and white. Jump settings of 1/125th @ f/13, ISO 400. AF Wide Area, AF with Shutter On, Subject Recognition Off, Electronic Shutter, WB UW Auto, Single Shot drive mode, Settings Effect On, Auto Review Off. Creative Look Black & White (viewfinder now black and white).

Modern mirrorless cameras have a plethora of options that allow us to optimise them for specific types of photography. The camera setup presented here is about making things easier, helping us remember those settings and not have to navigate through Sony’s menu maze when in front of a subject trying to nail the shot! But also remember that photography is about light, composition and communication and the main reason I customise my camera is to make it easier to focus on these.

Alex Mustard. June 2026.