Canon EOS 6D Member Reviews

[TexasTea]

Good morning all,

I wanted to start a thread for member reviews of the new Canon EOS 6D, as they begin to come to market.  I'm not sure if I've made the first shipment from my local retailer, so in the meantime I would like to see what posters think about their 6D.  Pros, cons and candid reviews vs. other Canon products are appreciated!

[ebiggs1]

Marketing is not a matter of actual need. It is of perceived need. They create need.

As a 5D and a 7D owner and user, I guess I am the poster boy for that strategy.

[BSDguru]

Need is rarely the reason to upgrade your camera. You need a new camera when your old one breaks. What is the value of better images? How many shots do you miss because the 7D won't focus in low-light? What's the value of video not stopping after 12 minutes causing you to not have continuous video footage? How much time does wireless save  you? Do you need to take a shot with the 6D and text it to a client in the field? Do you shoot video in low light?  Every lose a video because it was out of focus?

It all depends on what you do and what it's worth to you.

[dave]

I finally decided to buy the 6D to replace my 5DII and I am glad I did. But I have to begin with that somebody paid SFr. 1400 for my good old 5DII and I had to add SFr. 550 only to get a 6D, otherwise I would not have bought the 6D. This aside I can confirm that IQ is better from the 6D than from the 5DII, not much but remarkable since I don't have to apply my standard corrections anymore: The RAW-pics are cleaner and sharper out of camera than before. ISO performance is also better, but not relevant in my case. But my main reason for the 6D is size, weight, easier handling and most importantly the silent mode. I am a still photographer and therefore AF is not so important, although I also did sports and flying birds with my 5DII even with manual focus lenses. Nevertheless the surprisingly good center AF is a real advantage in low light, eg. in near darkness I press the AF-selection button to find the center AF, then manual focus my MF-Lens and get a focus confirmation where I barely can  see whether I am in focus. This is a real step up. I switched off GPS and WiFi and the battery seems to last forever. And not to forget, the 6D is rugged, I do not have the impression of a second rate camera in hands. So finally for still fotographers the 6D surely is a good, conservative upgrade compared to the 5DII. Sportsshooters and videographers might have different findings.

[lanranjun]

i have a good 60D and i think it's very cool ,i like it !

[thebear3]

Just got my Canon 6D on Friday...spent the weekend hiking, picture-taking and playing with it.

I "upgraded" from a 5DII to the 6D instead of the 5DIII because (amongst other reasons) I am constantly using my gps device to geotag photos and track my route...and it's all built into the 6D.  This works just great...really enjoyed not having to go through the extra steps.

I also had fun with the WiFi.  My video player knows about DLNA servers, and once I set up the 6D as a DLNA server, my player found it...and I was really impressed with the speed and ability to play back my photo's directly onto my large TV.  The down side is that for some reason, having the WiFi enabled on the 6D disables the USB port and the ability to record movies on the camera!  The other pain is that I had trouble having it SAVE the connection via WiFi to my LAN...I have a password on my access point and I can't tell you how many times I had to keep re-typing the password when I reconnected each time between the "wifi transfer mode", the "wifi smartphone mode", the "remote control mode"...etc. etc.  And I still haven't figured out how to get it wifi connected to my Canon MX880 printer...oh well...

I spent most of yesterday's hike playing with the 'automatic' functions.  Normally I photo using P, Tv and Av based on the subject matter, depth of field I need and adjust the white balance, as well.  Instead, I tried using the SCN modes, i.e "Landscape", "Closeup" etc. These functions worked pretty well...except that whenever I switched from one to another, the "ambiance-based' setting would annoyingly revert back to "Standard Setting"...it wouldn't remember that I set it for 'vivid' or 'warm'.

Other than those few things, the 6D is nice and light...except I regularly use the Canon 28-300 'L' lens which is unreasonably heavy to begin with.  I also played with the included 24-105 lens and got exceptional results with it.  As with all lenses and cameras, I let the camera do its 'autofocus', but then I also do the fine focusing manually to get better results.

Later this week I'll start using the movie mode to see how that works out...but so far, I am very pleased with my decision to get the 6D.

[glongstaff]

Hey guys, would like to know how it fairs with Sports.....

I know they say its main usage will be landscape etc and if you want sports get the 7D....but would like to move up to FF from and old Canon 350D (which does sports just fine and 3.5fps and the jpeg burst rate) and price difference between going for the 6D and the MKIII is giving me headaches on which to go for (6D earlier or save up for another 12 months and go for the MKIII with a 70-200 L f2.8 USM II)

[TexasTea]

12 months sounds painfully long to wait for a 5DIII...  I shot some of my dog running around in the snow over the holidays, and even at the frame rate, it produced some pretty decent shots.  That said, the frame rate slows when you use the "Silent" shutter modes, but in most sport settings I imagine that's not a mode you'd need to use anyway.  The biggest difference that you'll see from the 6D to the 5DIII in a Sports setting will be the usable number of AF points.  You'll get a much higher degree of focusing accuracy with the 5DIII and rapidly moving subjects.  I do love my 6D, and am extremely pleased so far, but I feel like the autofocus for shots where you need to capture the subject fast, is hard to lock a really great AF point. 

[rddelliott]

Texas Tea:

  When doing action sports, I have found that using the center point only is where the 6D really shines.  Most pro sports shooters use the center point only method or move the single point to where they need it.

[BSDguru]

The camera clearly isn't indented for action sports. You can't really complain if your SUV doesn't corner smoothly at 70Mph. 

[TexasTea]

Awesome! Thanks for the tip there!