On the GPS. How accurate is this supposed to be with this camera?

Top class: 1dx, 5d3
Middle class: 6D, 7D
Lower class: 60D, Rebel

Looks like a decent lineup to me. Sure, every camera body has some hiccups, but if you can't get great shots with any of those bodies, them maybe you have some smudges on your lens.

>> moan, moan, moan..... that's all that ever happens at release time

No, that's what happens at FULL release time. At least if you're doing it right...

el_hoppy wrote:
The 6D is just an entry level FF for 60D & Rebel shooters.
Well, I am not so sure about the 60D part either. Even here, the "upgrade" to 6D is questionable. The 60D has got at least 1/8000 and 9 crosstype AF points. Granted, higher ISO and larger sensor, fine. But the 60D has been working quite confidently with faster glass with lateral AF points (which are also spread out better, of course). So, maybe as a "backup" camera for the 60D it'd be allright, I guess ;-0. OK, being reasonable, still not quite a "step-up", just a trade-off of some features for others.

circusofcrows wrote:
What makes this "entry level"? It sports a fair amount of, until recently, professional range features. High iso sensetivity, same sensor as 5d3, same digic 5+ processor, no dial SD/CF, not a full view finder, but those are recent additions to the FF/Pro level of DSLR. Can someone shed some light as to why its labeled "Entry Level"?

From my point of view, Canon have a long history to segment the classes of the bodies by AF system. For a very long time, no body but 1D would get a great AF.

So, looking at 6D, with its 20/30D style AF (+ two additional low performance points, and the surprisingly very light-sensitive cross in the center (but performance to be seen yet)), the 6D seems to me as (so far) the entry level FF camera. Seriously, give it a smaller and plastic shell, pentamirror instead of pentaprism and internal flash, and you are looking on a FF Rebel (1/4000 shutter speed, 1/180 x-sync, 4FPS). With GPS/Wifi now built to every mobile phone, these aren't high end things anyway.

Ralph Conway wrote:
mttran wrote:
artd wrote:
Huh. It is approaching four years now since I purchased my 5DII. And Canon--despite releasing three new FF cameras this year--has still not produced a camera I would want to purchase as an upgrade.



+1, same here....really sad....

-3. Not same here. Surely we have different wishes/needs.
After 3.5 years shooting 5D II I developed my business and my needs/wishes enhanced, too.
At the moment I see 3 new bodies offered this year, which might fullfill them.
To two of them I would upgrade immediatelly if I could afford them without big investigation.
The third one I can afford and I would buy it for higher ISO, -3 EV and MA only, if in general the camera is working fine. The only cause that prevents me now is that I did not see any high ISO pics, did not check AF, did not hold it in my hands, it is not available and last not least: saving the money to be able to afford one of the others soon.

So from my point of view, Canon did it horrible good.

Ralph

Ralph, surely we have different wishes/needs. Hi-iso is the last thing i need for my work...i have plenty shutter speed with fastest prime(s) and i want to boost their IQ to another level. Latest canon sensor does not help me much compared to what i already have. For me, the only thing that worth the upgrade is EXMORE comparable sensor in canon camp.

Pixel Perfect wrote:
Yes it will be a great upgrade over a 5Dc, but what it is not is a great upgrade over the 5D II, but then again it's a 6D, so does sit lower in the food chain.

In the food chain, 6D lies somewhere between plankton and krill.

skibum5 wrote:
EOS20 wrote:
Imagine the reaction if the 6D was the 5D MkIII!



oh man haha

that may have triggered the Mayan 2012 demise of the world as all the rants on the net gained such mass as to swallow up the earth into itself

Just when they were getting their act together with the 7d , 5d111 and the 1dx , they come out with this ridiculous camera

Another Canon disaster from the bad days........

Skyehigh wrote:

.... they come out with this ridiculous camera

Another Canon disaster from the bad days........

I don't expect you'll be forced to buy it

Just perhaps, someone might quite like it. I mean it will take nice pictures and all that

"ridiculous" is a bit strong.

According to the description at Canon's website, the smartphone apps can set everything *except* the mode. That physical dial is suddenly not looking so clever...

Said app I think could be a hard sell to 5D owners who saw their cameras orphaned from tethering support by Canon, in some cases when the camera was only about 3 years old. The very first time an iOS or Android change requires some effort it'll be just all too hard for Canon.

melcat wrote:
According to the description at Canon's website, the smartphone apps can set everything *except* the mode. That physical dial is suddenly not looking so clever...

Said app I think could be a hard sell to 5D owners who saw their cameras orphaned from tethering support by Canon, in some cases when the camera was only about 3 years old. The very first time an iOS or Android change requires some effort it'll be just all too hard for Canon.

A bit too harsh there mate. It's not like you're gonna be operating the camera remotely from the other side of a mountain. Chances are you're still going to be within an arm's reach.

I don't get what you mean by "iOS or Android change", you mean an update? If the app is like any other app I use on my phone, it should be a breeze to update.

n0b0 wrote:
A bit too harsh there mate. It's not like you're gonna be operating the camera remotely from the other side of a mountain.

Funnily enough, that is one of the things I thought of to do with it. But really it is evidence the whole thing was not thought out from the start.

I don't get what you mean by "iOS or Android change", you mean an update?

For example, the retina screen requires app developers to update apps for best performance. Probably also the new aspect ratio of the iPhone 5 will make that desirable. Android apparently requires lots of per-device testing and tweaking.

If the app is like any other app I use on my phone, it should be a breeze to update.

The point is not whether you can do it, but whether Canon could be bothered. You can't tether a 5D on a new Mac, period (** see EDIT below), and it isn't Apple's fault. Lightroom 4.3 can't do it either. If, say, I had a little business doing Santa portraits, for which a 5D is still quite adequate, I'd be incandescent over that.

Lightroom tethering, in case you don't believe:

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/tethered-camera-support-lightroom-4.html

Sorry, but to me Canon's add on software *does not exist*. If they care to open the protocol and/or third parties provide it, then OK.

EDIT - after doing some research, I've found it *is* actually possible to tether a 5D on a recent Mac, although not many people are going to figure out how. The protocol has been reverse-engineered by none other than Apple. Hidden under "Image Capture"'s File menu is a function that lets you save the files to a hard disk folder instead of the camera's CF card, and you can even release the shutter from here. You need to click some checkboxes, and in my testing it did not always work reliably (I didn't have a fully patched OS so I suppose it's since been fixed). Aperture apparently also has this support.

It remains the case that Canon don't support it in their software. I found reports that a version of EOS Utility later than the one on the CD-ROM that came with the 5D, and earlier than the current one, worked for some people, and some that it didn't. That version is 2.7.2, in case anyone wants to try. However, I would regard it as unwise to leave this installed, because it has a bug that screws up camera firmware updates, and it doesn't support the latest cameras and lenses.

Although it doesn't really affect my argument - Canon's software support is inadequate - I apologize to anyone who actually needs to tether a 5D and was misled.

I got 2 questions:

1) Is the AF point selected blink red during focus confirm or black like with 5d3/1dx?

2) Do you need to be in a wifi zone to use the EOS Remote app? If so, doesn't that severely limit the functionality in remote locations?

vsg28 wrote:
2) Do you need to be in a wifi zone to use the EOS Remote app? If so, doesn't that severely limit the functionality in remote locations?

No, the wording is confusing but on close reading they must mean it can use either infrastructure or ad-hoc.

I sure hope that is the case. As you said, it isn't explicitly mentioned in the Canon info section on the app.

vsg28 wrote:
I sure hope that is the case. As you said, it isn't explicitly mentioned in the Canon info section on the app.

I found a copy of the page back now on the UK site:

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/eos_remote.aspx

which I thought I read earlier on the US or Australian site. Anyway, there's a drawing there of someone checking their pictures from their phone sitting on a train with the camera in a bag. And it says

"EOS Remote allows connection via access points (infrastructure), but even in environments without access points, it can be used if you have just a camera and a smartphone."

melcat wrote:
n0b0 wrote:
A bit too harsh there mate. It's not like you're gonna be operating the camera remotely from the other side of a mountain.

Funnily enough, that is one of the things I thought of to do with it. But really it is evidence the whole thing was not thought out from the start.

I don't get what you mean by "iOS or Android change", you mean an update?

For example, the retina screen requires app developers to update apps for best performance. Probably also the new aspect ratio of the iPhone 5 will make that desirable. Android apparently requires lots of per-device testing and tweaking.

If the app is like any other app I use on my phone, it should be a breeze to update.

The point is not whether you can do it, but whether Canon could be bothered. You can't tether a 5D on a new Mac, period, and it isn't Apple's fault. Lightroom 4.3 can't do it either. If, say, I had a little business doing Santa portraits, for which a 5D is still quite adequate, I'd be incandescent over that.

Lightroom tethering, in case you don't believe:

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/tethered-camera-support-lightroom-4.html

Sorry, but to me Canon's add on software *does not exist*. If they care to open the protocol and/or third parties provide it, then OK.


It's not that the app isn't well thought out, I think it's simply wasn't designed to do anything more than wireless tethering.

About the iOS device changes, well... unless you're one of those iPhone fanboys who must have the latest everytime Apple release a new one, chances are the support is already available by the time you upgrade your phone.

As to the Android, to get it going Canon really only need to support the few most popular and latest ones, which are mostly Samsung phones and tablets. Add a bit of HTC One, Google Nexus, Asus Transformer and you have probably 80% of the Android market covered.

Sorry I'm not familiar with either the old 5D or the new Mac so I don't know what the issue is. My guess is Canon probably needs to update the 5D firmware to support the new Mac but they (understandably) don't want to. Why should they? The 5D is a very old discontinued camera, you can't expect Canon to keep supporting it.

Besides, if you're still using a 5D for your business, chances are you also wouldn't be using the latest and greatest computer with it.

Funny enough, wireless WiFi is one of the highlights of the 6D for me.

n0b0 wrote:
Sorry I'm not familiar with either the old 5D or the new Mac so I don't know what the issue is. My guess is Canon probably needs to update the 5D firmware to support the new Mac but they (understandably) don't want to.

What? It's USB, an industry standard. Canon send packets across it, they won't document those, and you're supposed to use the library they give you. Canon removed 5D support from the latest library, and old versions of the library won't run under recent versions of OS X. We are not talking about any hardware change here, just a regular OS update.

Clearly Adobe use the library. Last I looked, its conditions of use mean they aren't allowed to reverse engineer the 5D's tethering protocol.

Why should they? The 5D is a very old discontinued camera, you can't expect Canon to keep supporting it.

People in forums like this have a funny idea of "very old". Mine is 5 years old, and the software ceased to work on OS X Lion, more than a year ago.

Besides, if you're still using a 5D for your business, chances are you also wouldn't be using the latest and greatest computer with it.

This is an OS update, required for security patches. But if the little Santa business's MacBook should break, it is completely reasonable to replace it and not the camera. You can't run old OS X on new Macs.

melcat wrote:

The point is not whether you can do it, but whether Canon could be bothered. You can't tether a 5D on a new Mac, period, and it isn't Apple's fault. Lightroom 4.3 can't do it either. If, say, I had a little business doing Santa portraits, for which a 5D is still quite adequate, I'd be incandescent over that.

Lightroom tethering, in case you don't believe:

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/tethered-camera-support-lightroom-4.html

Sorry, but to me Canon's add on software *does not exist*. If they care to open the protocol and/or third parties provide it, then OK.


I do understand what you mean but when the 5D was new it worked, tethered to a laptop with Canon software. It will still work tethered to the same laptop with the same software. If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that it won't work if you upgrade your laptop and your software but not your camera. There has to be a limit to how far it is reasonable to stretch that separation of technologies. We can, of course reasonably argue about where that limit should lie, but there does have to be a limit. I have a lot of audio tech that used to work with old computers but doesn't now on my new hardware. It's a pain but there is a limit to how long I can reasonably expect the manufacturer to put resources into supporting long dead technology.

It's like saying that Adobe isn't playing fair because CS6 doesn't work under Panther or Apple is unreasonable because I can't install Mountain Lion on a 5 year old MacBook. They could make it happen if they really wanted to but it's just not worth the effort.

So, yes, I agree that when iOS 7, 8 or 9 comes out there may be a point at which the Canon app stops working. But how long is it reasonable to expect to be able to upgrade one side of your technology without the other? Or do you just need to keep your old iPhone running iOS6 long after you've stopped using it as a phone?