EOS R6 Mark II: Question about why my shutter speed and ISO are acting the way they are

[stcapp1426]

I have an R6 Mark II that I got about 6 months ago, and I am an amateur-level photographer. I shoot in manual most of the time with auto ISO and exposure compensation if I need it. I have the ISO capped at 12800. Today, I volunteered to shoot people at an event, so I set the camera to aperture priority so I could set my f stop and leave it since I was shooting them in front of a prop. I used my Canon EF mount (with adapter) 24-105 lens. My ISO was also on auto. My friend, who also has a Canon mirrorless (don't know which one) was there as well, with a Canon 70-300 EF mount lens. She set hers up the same way as I did. I noticed that my camera chose a very fast shutter speed combined with a high ISO. Shooting the same scene, her camera chose shutter speeds of around 1/200 with a much lower ISO. Why is that? Is there some setting I don't yet know about that's doing that? This has happened once before but I didn't think much of it then because I didn't have another photographer with me where we could compare settings. It seems like the shutter speed and ISO are competing with one another. What's going on? I'd greatly appreciate your help!

Sherri

[stevet1 · Accepted solution]

Sherri,

My apologies. I didn't read your initial post carefully enough.

As you said, the only variables I can see are the cameras and the lenses.

Any chance you can borrow her lens for a few test shots?

Take a couple with your lens, and then a couple of the exact same scene with hers at the same focal length.

See if there's a difference. You could also run the same test on her camera.

I do not know, and have never read anything to suggest that Canon has changed their algorithms for how they achieve that 18% gray in determining "proper" exposure in the intervening years between when her camera came on the market, and when yours did.

I'm just not that knowledgeable.

Steve Thomas

[Waddizzle · Accepted solution]

I suggest that you become more cognizant of how you handle the camera before, during, and between shots.  When electronics fail, the failures tend to be permanent, not intermittent.

I only mentioned BBF because it caused me to become more cognizant of what my thumb was doing.  Coincidently, the issues I was having with the occasional outlier bad exposure seemed to go away.

Again, strive to be more cognizant of how you hold the camera before, during, and most especially between shots.  Not to point fingers, I think your issue is mist likely operator error related.  Electronic failures are reproducible and permanent, almost never intermittent.

[stcapp1426]

Thank you. It very well could be operator error. I'm new to the camera, so I'm still learning it slowly. I've never done this type of shoot before and as I said, I almost always shoot in manual so I have control. I will certainly take your advice. Again, thank you.

[Finelld]

It sounds like you might have exposure compensation set.  This is a feature that allows proper exposure if you are shooting a scene that is predominantly darker or lighter than average.  An example of how this feature is used isn if you were shooting a person in a white ski suit on a snow covered mountain.  If you let the auto exposure set the scene normally the snow and the person would come out as grey rather than white.  the image would be under exposed.  To adjust for this your camera has an exposure compensation function that allows you to adjust the default exposure up or down by a few stops.  I would check to see if this is mis adjusted.

[stcapp1426]

We both had exposure compensation set to the same value -2/3 of a stop, and you would think the camera would slow down the shutter speed to compensate. 

[stevet1]

Sherri,

In your settings for the ISO range, or maximum ISO, is there also a setting for minimum shutter speed?

Steve Thomas

[stcapp1426]

Yes it does. I just found it. It was set to manual 1" which when I look at it it says 1/1000, then below that is 1/30. I don't know what any of this means. There's also an auto setting. Should it be set to that?

[stevet1 · Accepted solution]

Sherri.

Yes, I think so. Set it to Auto.

I think that's why your camera is using a minimum of 1/1000ss and kicking your ISO up so high.

Steve Thomas

[stcapp1426]

Intuitively I thought that meant the highest would be 1/1000 and the lowest would be 1/30. I don't know how it got set to that, since I never set it, but I will change it to auto and see what happens.  Thank you.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

If not already done, it might be helpful to review the R62's user guide. 

Canon : Product Manual : EOS R6 Mark II (start.canon)

Additionally, until a better understanding of the camera function's are understood, I would refrain from making changes to it's menus while you are learning about the camera's features.

Consider resetting the camera's main and custom functions.   Establish a baseline for exposure and start from there.  Avoid extremes. 

It would also be helpful if you could post some RAW photos with EXIF data.  We can evaluate these for you.  You can use a sharing service to facilitate this.  OneDrive, DropBox, GoogleDrive, etc.   

[stcapp1426]

OK. I don't have any custom functions set up yet. And I don't have much in the way of settings outside of the defaults, except BBF and things like AI Focus, single point focus.