SRTfirst

40-45 years ago, I loved 35mm SLRs. Last year I decided to get back into photography with a digital mirrorless. After more than a year of countless times through the manual, You Tube tutorials, and a friend suggesting settings, I still feel incompetent. And it’s not fun! I’m not (quite) ready to resort to a point and shoot, but if you have any suggestions of which cameras offer the most intuitive menus, I’d be very appreciative.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Tell us what you have. We might have some tips specific to that model. The better models let you create a custom menu of your own frequent / favorite menu items so you don't have to navigate the whole system to reach those items.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

I have enjoyed using the menu systems on Fujifilm mirrorless cameras. Recently tried a highly-touted Canon model which I honestly expected to like, but, within several days after it arrived, I shipped it back to the vender for a full refund - the menu system was terrible.

User ID

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Get a David Busch "bible" for your camera.

If that doesn't solve the issue, include the
bible to sweeten the deal when you sell off
the outfit.

Do realize that the camera is a computer
peripheral, not a free standing piece of
hardware like an old film camera.

While many users just ignore most of the
tricky features built into modern cameras,
you must get comfortable with generality
of the menu system, cuz I assure you that
sooner or later, when in rushed, using only
the more basic features, you WILL push a
wrong button accidentally and the camera
will become "unfriendly". You'll need some
ability to navigate the menus to fix that. A
simple powering off and on again doesn't
always solve things :-(

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Some cameras have "user channels" or
"custom memories" etc etc that store a
user's personal set up[s]. These can be
an answer to confusion caused by some
accidental button pushing. If you always
work in one of your user channels, you
are free to adjust anything you want, by
intent of by accident, but if you screw
up, then just exit the user channel, and
then re-enter it. Whenever you enter or
re-enter a user channel it always starts
you out with the memorized preferred
settings you had used in creating that
channel. It's kinda sorta similar to the
"restore disk" for a PC ... kinda sorta :-)


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wmurnahan Loc: Bloomington IN

It was a lot simpler when all cameras had the same three controls. Aperture ring, shutter speed wheel, and shutter release. My frustration is I have both Sony a6500 and a7ii and the menus are not the same. I will find a control, like to change the viewfinder when I'm shooting in the dark and don't what the what you see is what you get viewfinder, I want a faked SLR view finder, and then take forever to find it again.

User ID

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Thaz where you use the U1, U2, or U3 channels.
They only serve their purpose if you set them
up in advance for whatever different conditions
you expect to work under.

Other brands call these channels "C1, C2 ... " or
"MySet 1, MySet 2 ... " [or whatever]. They are
no fun at all to set up, but terrific once you have
them operational.

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JD750 Loc: SoCal

After a year if your still unhappy, perhaps it’s time for a new camera.

SLR’s are available, cheap. Film is readily available, as are labs to process it.

https://garage.ext.hp.com/us/en/modern-life/analog-film-photography-trend-low-tech-photos.html

https://filmphotographyproject.com/

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

None of them have what you could call intuitive menus, just like none of them have clearly written manuals. Nikons and Canons are pretty straightforward, Fuji has its quirks, and Sony is the worst.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Beat me to it!
I shoot Nikon for my professional work, but I absolutely LOVE my Fuji mirrorless.
I started with an X-E1 and now have an X-E2 that I use for my personal stuff.
(also had an X100s that I wish I hadn't sold)
All of the menu systems and controls are sooo intuitive!
The handling reminds me of when I used a Leica M4 at a previous job.
I used the Fuji X-E1 for a few weeks w/o opening the instruction book.
And the lenses are great, event the so-called "kit" 18-55.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

Unfortunately, you fail to mention which make you bought, I have two mirrorless cameras, both M43.
One is an Olympus EM 10 the other is Panasonic G3, the Olympus Menu has a very steep learning curve and even after several years I still have not really got used to it, I love the camera though. The Panasonic menu, however, is dead simple, it's a very good camera but I prefer the EM10 despite its menu.

mjmgka

SRTfirst, I kind of feel the same way, a couple of months ago I bought the Fujifilm T-30. Have been toying around with it since. However I just went on a recent trip to China and came back with nearly 1000 pics. Of that there is a small handful of pictures that I like. Everything seems off on almost all of the pictures. Just can not seem to get the hang of it.

Years ago, with my SLR the majority of the pics were pleasing.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

No camera menu is perfect and some are a little more difficult to learn than others. Books written on how to handle the camera are very useful.
I use Olympus mirrorless cameras. It has not been difficult for me to understand and work with the menus. In You Tube I have seen excellent tutorials to set the camera explained in the simplest of terms. I even discovered features I did not know the cameras had in the menus.
Once the camera you are using is known it will be much easier for us to give you the answers.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

Focus (no pun intended) on what you want to do, not what the camera can do, and you can disregard a whole lot of most menu systems. I switched to M43 cameras a couple of years ago and have both Olympus and Panasonic bodies and lenses. Despite the reputed (relative) simplicity of Panasonic menus as compared to Olympus, it's the Olympus bodies that I use the most.

Both of my brands, and I gather most other digital cameras these days, have a button that displays a single screen with the most used functions, and allows you to move through them to select what you want to adjust, and then make those adjustments with another button or wheel. The Olympus term is the Super Control Panel, Panasonic calls it the Quick Menu. Study the user manual and learn what the functions on these screens do and you'll have what you need to use the camera. Most of the rest of the menu options are tweaking and special function stuff that the camera is able to do, but not that you usually need to do.

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

David Busch or Darrel Young write excellent How to or Mastering the ______ books. I have an Olympus micro 4/3s and Darrell Young's book on my camera is awesome.

rond-photography Loc: Connecticut

Take a step back and relax. All digital cameras have a zillion bells and whistles. That doesn't mean we need to blow and ring them (or even understand all of them).

You already probably know how to get good photos if you were using an SLR 40 years ago - they didn't do much automatically back then (and only if you went for the more advanced models).

Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are the basics, as they were in the film days.
In the menus (or more likely a button) you will need to understand auto focus, so concentrate on that before worrying about "focus stacking", "live composite", "art filters", or any other "nice to have, but not actually required" feature. Don't worry that you paid for these features and you wasted money if you don't use them!

Once you have gotten comfortable with the camera and start getting consistently good photos, you can start wondering how you might do more. The problem with menus (or Help on a computer) is that you have to know what question to ask before you can search for the answer. The technology has come a long way in the last 20 years. There are features that could not have existed in the film world, and did not exist in the digital world until recently. For example, how do you find out how to use "Focus Stacking" in a camera if you don't even know it is called that?

Go slow. When you hear about a feature, and it makes sense to you and you think it would be useful (not all of them are for everyone), concentrate on that feature and learn it.

I had my first digital camera for over a year (an all in one) before I realized it worked exactly like my old Canon AT-1 film camera. Low and behold, I started getting better shots because I didn't just let the camera decide all the settings. I still don't spend very much time in the menus, and over time I have picked up enough that the menus do become more intuitive (because my knowledge of digital has expanded).

If you need a starting point to learn in the menus, learn about the AF settings, set up "Focus Peaking" (a great help in manual focusing), and become familiar with metering modes (probably a 5 to 10 minute thing - not rocket science). Then shoot and play. I have not tried most of the features my camera has, nor spent more than 2 hours altogether over the last 5 years in my menus. Olympus OMD-M1 and M1 II, to give you an idea of what menus I am talking about. You can get great photos and not strain your brain over things that will "not be on the exam". Oh! There is no exam! Have fun!