Seeking Advice for Upgrading EF-S 18-55mm Lens on EOS M6 Mark II for Wildlife Photography

[Katherine_Ryan]

I've been facing a bit of a dilemma lately and thought this would be the best place to seek some expert opinions. Currently, I'm using the Canon EF-S 18-55mm kit lens with my EOS M6 Mark II, and while it's been a decent all-around lens,I've been considering an upgrade to a Tamron lens, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by the options available and could really use some guidance. My main concern is getting sharper images for wildlife shots, especially when I'm zoomed in. The 70-200mm f/2.8L lens I've been using tends to get a bit blurry at 200mm and low apertures, and that's been a major frustration for me.Has anyone else experienced blurriness issues at the higher end of zoom and low apertures with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L lens? If so, how did you address DMV Records at dmvnowportal  this problem? Is it a technique issue or a limitation of the lens?

[jrhoffman75]

Which version of the 70-200 do you have? Are you shooting with a high enough shutter speed? You should be using no lower than 1/400 second.

Can you post a RAW file for one or two of the images you are unhappy with (using Dropbox or One Drive)?

[Anonymous]

Do you have a filter on the 70-200 mm lens? If so, try removing it and see if focus improves. 

[ebiggs1]

Almost all if not all OOF or blurry photos are caused by the photographer, unless a really cheap lens which any ef 70-200mm f2.8L is not. Too slow SS is just one example but missed focus point is probably the biggest. Meaning the  lens focused on something you thought was somewhere else. Another might be, is a very shallow DOF. These things need to be addressed first.

[ebiggs1]

"Do you have a filter on the 70-200 mm lens?"

A filter must be at the same quality level of the lens you are planning to use it on. Any ef 70-200mm f2.8L lens requires a top quality filter if that is your intention. In other words you don't use a $25 Pisajunk UV filter on a ef 70-200mm f2.8L lens. For instance a B+W MRC MASTER 007 Clear Filter can be $75 to $100 bucks and well suited for a top level lens like a ef 70-200mm f2.8L.

[Anonymous]

"$25 Pisajunk UV"

That's hilarious!

[Tronhard]

Given that the M6 series does not have a built-in viewfinder, are you using the optional EVF that is available?
If not, for telephoto work, this may be  your issue.  When using a camera via the rear LCD, one either has to either mount it on a solid surface, or hold it like a cell phone: i.e. held away from the body so you can see the LCD. The M6 was designed more for use with short focal length, light lenses that one uses for social photography, and without an LCD it is inherently challenged with longer lenses.

The problems with this are two fold:
First: for any stable shooting platform one needs three points of contact - which is why tripods have three legs.  Holding a camera hand-held to shoot via the LCD will provide only two points and that is essentially unstable. 

For correct shooting you need to be able to hold the camera to your eye to get a third point of contact, but unless you have a viewfinder this is not possible.  See the diagrams below.

Second: This instability is exacerbated the longer the lens focal length.  This is for two reasons - first, the lens is looking further away, so any instability will be magnified.  Second, telephoto lenses are normally significantly heavier and thus harder to keep stable when hand-holding.  As I alluded to above, it does not show up that much with wide-angle lenses because they are usually quite lightweight, and they tend to be more forgiving of camera movement. 

For example, conventional wisdom suggest that minimum shutter speed should be the inverse of the focal length of the lens.  So, a 20mm lens needs at least 1/20sec, a 200mm lens needs 1/200sec minimum just for stability - but those numbers are more applicable to cameras with viewfinders.

I would suggest that you consider either getting an Electronic Viewfinder if you wish to continue to use this camera, put it on a tripod for shooting, or change the camera to one with a viewfinder, such as the M5 or M50. The M5 is actually the better stills camera, but they are rare these days (I still have one), so the M50 MkII might be your best bet to continue to use your EF-M lenses.