6.46 Memory Recall

Figure 6-94: Memory Recall screen – choose between 6 previously-stored configurations (4 of which are stored on the memory card).

Menu Position MENU --> 9 --> Memory Recall

What it Does Allows you to recall one of six previously-saved system configurations

Recommended Setting: n/a

 

This feature recalls one of the six camera settings committed to memory via MENU --> 9 --> Memory as described in the next section. This menu item will be greyed out unless the Exposure Mode dial is set to "1" or "2".

To use, bring up the Memory Recall menu (or set the exposure mode dial to "1" or "2"), select the memory location you’d like to recall via the arrow buttons, and hit the center button to select.

Important Note: There are a total of six memory locations available. Memory locations 1 and 2 store the information in the body, and M1-M4 are stored on your memory card.

Why would this be a desirable thing? I can think of only one scenario: Let’s say you’re an über-pro and you take many identical Sony camera bodies with you on location. Rather than spending a lot of time configuring each camera individually, this new feature allows you to configure your camera ONCE, store it on a memory card, and then move that memory card from camera to camera, doing a quick “Recall”, followed by another save to a local memory location.

That’s my guess, anyway. The problem is that only settings from the Recording () menu, the f/stop, shutter speed, and exposure mode are saved. That’s it. Things like the Fn menu customization or the custom button assignments don’t.

Here are the locations and file names where the information is stored on the memory card:

/PRIVATE/SONY/SETTING/[camera-unique name]/CAMPRO01.DAT

/PRIVATE/SONY/SETTING/[camera-unique name]/CAMPRO02.DAT

/PRIVATE/SONY/SETTING/[camera-unique name]/CAMPRO03.DAT

/PRIVATE/SONY/SETTING/[camera-unique name]/CAMPRO04.DAT

(Each of these M1-M4 DAT files is 1Kb each. I tried to peruse them via a text editor, but most of the information is not in human-readable ASCII or Unicode text. Also note the camera-specific path name, meaning you can’t transfer settings between dissimilar cameras. (I guess that eliminates the possibility of conflict should the dissimilar cameras have different feature sets.)

 

TIP: Memory Recall (menu function) is greyed out unless the exposure mode dial is set to either 1 or 2. At that time this function will either let you recall Memory Location 1 + M1-M4 (as shown in Figure 6-94), or Memory Location 2 + M1-M4.