Disclaimer: currently evolving constantly.
Noted down for my own reference, as with NikonD90Settings.
| a1 (AF-C priority) | Focus | I would rather have somewhat less in-focus pictures than somewhat more out of focus ones. |
| a7 (AF-assist light) | off | No blinking at people in the dark, thanks. |
| c4 (Monitor off delay) | 10s for image review | I like more time to chimp. |
| d2 (Viewfinder grid) | off (the default) |
|
| d3 (ISO display+) | 'ISO' | I want to see ISO since I use auto ISO a lot. I continue to be annoyed that the ISO is replaced with the buffer count when the shutter button is pressed. |
| d7 (File number seq) | on (the default) |
I don't want numbering to reset or the directory to ever change. This'll do. This is the default but I'm noting it explicitly for myself. |
| e4 (Exposure comp for flash) | background only | Applies FEC by itself, not on top of regular exposure compensation. Thom Hogan recommends this here. |
| e7 (Bracketing order) | Under, MTR, Over | This is the sane ordering for things like HDR. |
| f1 (Okay button) | playback mode: magnify | This is much more useful to me than thumbnails on/off. |
| f2 (Fn button) | spot metering | Experimental, based on a suggestion from Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the D90. Basically this gives me a quick way of checking the exposure of various bits of the scene (especially the focus point) relative to the overall matrix metering. (Big swings are likely a problem.) |
| f3 (Preview button) | Virtual horizon | I can't level things to save my life. This can't be combined with a press + command wheel option (I'm not sure what can be, although I assume there's something). |
| f4 (AE-L/AF-L) | AE lock (hold) | I wrote an entire blog entry about why AE lock is important with matrix metering to save your sanity. As before, I do not want to have to keep a finger on the button to keep AE locked. |
| f5 (command dials) | Menus and playback: on | I want the command dials to scroll through images during general image review the way they do in the post-photo image review. I'd be happy if they did nothing in menus but the option Nikon offers here is exactly backwards from the one I want. |
| f7 (Slot empty lock) | lock | If I leave both memory cards out, I want to know about it. |
| f9 (MB-D15 AE-L) | AE lock (hold) | See f4. |
Several of the settings no longer need to be changed; for example, Nikon has switched to reversing the EV indicators by default and the D7100 is 'pro' enough that beeping at you defaults to off.
18-April-2013: I swapped the Fn and Preview button functions because I realized that I was using the Fn button function exactly once every time I reset or power up the camera (I leave it on virtual horizon all the time) and the Fn button is more generally accessible than the Preview button (especially when you're using the vertical grip).
(I wish there was a 'turn on virtual horizon' menu item because that would free up the Preview button to be an actual DOF preview. Sadly if you reassign the button it turns off an active virtual horizon.)
My menu is set up with:
I chimp battery info frequently because it doubles as my 'how many photographs have I taken today' counter, since I recharge the battery every night when I offload the day's pictures.
The last two settings are off the bottom of the screen.
I have to set these too. And they don't annotate what gets changed, unlike custom settings.
I think that was it.