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Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

robstein
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Appreciate answers to my random questions over the last few weeks while I over thought my way forward. As a small way to give a little back - Here are some random thoughts after a week into this mirrorless journey. Have not done any serious shooting, just playing around as real work is taking up too much time

So you know my context & where I'm coming from: Old setup was a 5Dii & 7D (orig) + the usual f4L suspects 70-200IS, 24-105, 17-40 + 135f2 + stack of mid grade primes (50f1.4, 85f1.8 etc) & some odd ball stuff.

New setup: R6ii + RF24-240 + all the stuff above.

Obviously this is a vast step up and basically a decade's gap in body tech... so much of this is likely a smaller step for others coming from more recent SLR bodies.

The good....
- There are vastly more great bits that I'm not mentioning - obviously a great step up for me.
- The auto focus system (with one exception below) is brilliant. That is everywhere, so not news.
- I agonized over skipping the RF24-105 in favor of the 24-240 super zoom as it's my most used EF lens and the stories of the 24-240 are mixed at best. In the end I have more travel for the next few years and just wanted to get rid of some walking weight. So far it is great (if you don't look at the uncorrected image), far better than the stuff you read online. The combo of lens IS and IBIS is staggering. No it's not L quality on edges (it's not that much different from my EF24-105L version1 if I'm honest and not pixel peeping) but certainly not bad. I suspect it and a few primes will cut down my travel setup a lot.

The so so....
- The AF system is complex; I don't want to say there are too many points but there are a little. I understand this is just inexperience, just a bit of getting used to the change and getting it setup the way I want.
- The build quality is a bit lower to my hands and I'm not a huge fan of the rubber like texture... almost certainly a personal preference and I likely will not notice in a few months.
- Having to guess that the "release without lens" option is needed for a manual focus lenses is a bit blah. Surly the camera can separate no lens from a mounted lens not reporting info.
- Setting the picture style to mono also changes the viewfinder. I know this is left field but I got used to having the preview B&W while seeing color in optical finder and shooting RAW having the color captured. Have not decided if this is a plus or minus... I might learn to like the viewfinder in mono also.
- I grabbed an off-brand EF-RF converter with the grad ND included (and a regular canon wheel one since I will continue to have a stack of EF glass). I love that vs dealing with them on the end of the lens. Really great simplification. Have not played but reviews for Meike are good, so took a gamble.

The bad....
- You can almost hear the juice sucking out of the battery. I'm so used to batteries only been a minor issue in the cold but this sucker is clearly dependent on them big time. I ordered a 2nd new model battery but I'm aware I can use prev batteries so workable.
- Yet another change in the flash setup... I expected this and have not played yet but know there will be some pain with non canon triggers & older flashes (not 100% sure if the old 580's work as expected as seems to be mixed reports and manual wording is not that clear to me).
- I didn't twig that the cable release connector was not compatible with the old 803N thing - really?
- The disappearing histogram is really annoying... You have to have exp simulation ON in order to keep the hist - any other option make it magically disappear. No idea why and it's not clear at all in the manual that is what's causing it to disappear.

The ugly....
- The app (android) is an abomination. I got GPS sync to work once although I don't know why GPS is just not built in to camera, like many others. The shutter functions appeared really basic. Never been able to connect it a 2nd time, so gave up - at least for now. I was REALLY hoping to have GPS metadata tagged

- Focusing in the dark on horizontal lines only is a train wreck. Camera feels more like a 20D or even an old film body. Obviously this is a specific scenario but it did surprise me.
- The plastic lens cap on body end. What the duck was the need to make this worse. To keep with the small flying bird analogy, it's plucking terrible.

I have no idea but I struggle to get it attached correctly and just feels like a change that didn't need to occur as I've never had an issue with the EF lenses.

Anyway... This is far longer than anyone needs but maybe helpful to someone sometime....

Aug 19, 2023 at 04:27 PM

Gochugogi
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

I've owned the R6 MK II since launch and one thing I must say is the battery lasts a long time compared to most mirrorless cameras and isn't too far behind my last DSLR. If I'm out shooting critters in servo/H+ I can easily get a couple thousand RAW off a charge. If it's draining fast you might consider changing a few settings. Disabling bluetooth and Wi-Fi made a major difference for me (or use airplane mode). It can sit for a week at full charge now. Before I'd charge it and the battery would be dead from just sitting in the bag a couple days. Also, I disabled the auto image review and auto switching between the EVF and rear LCD. I have to press a button to review images or switch to rear screen but it keeps the camera from needlessly displaying images and flashing a distracting bright screen while shooting in dark venues.

And, yeah, horizontal lines and clouds are among the few things mirrorless struggles with. Even my old 70D could nail those types of objects in dim light. Titling the camera while in one-shot mode and recomposing is the fast workaround for horizontal lines.

Aug 19, 2023 at 05:23 PM

robstein
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Gochugogi wrote:
I've owned the R6 MK II since launch and one thing I must say is the battery lasts a long time compared to most mirrorless cameras and isn't too far behind my last DSLR. If I'm out shooting critters in servo/H+ I can easily get a couple thousand RAW off a charge. If it's draining fast you might consider changing a few settings. Disabling bluetooth and Wi-Fi made a major difference for me (or use airplane mode). It can sit for a week at full charge now. Before I'd charge it and the battery would be dead from just sitting...Show more →

Yeah... I'll go thru the power saving type options. I have a habit of letting it auto off and I suspect the mirrorless is just running all the time, so probably have to start deliberately turning off every time.

The tilt is funny as I used to do that with my 90's film camera. I was surprised they didn't get a better solution at this level of tech. I'll see how it goes in real life.

Aug 19, 2023 at 10:33 PM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

What phone do you have? I've had zero problems with my Pixel 6 and R6. Once connected, it will reconnect automatically whenever the camera is powered on for hours.

The R6 uses the same cable release as the lower models. The R5 uses the same N3 connector as 5D series. I found a simple generic model for really cheap. I just use it for the occasional bulb exposure, which I find easier than an app. Functions I used to need the remote for are now accessible through the camera's UI or app.

Aug 20, 2023 at 12:58 AM

melcat
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Gochugogi wrote:
And, yeah, horizontal lines and clouds are among the few things mirrorless struggles with. Even my old 70D could nail those types of objects in dim light. Titling the camera while in one-shot mode and recomposing is the fast workaround for horizontal lines.

It’s not mirrorless in general, but Canon’s dual pixel autofocus (DPAF) and Sony’s on-sensor phase detection autofocus. Both of them are completely blind to lines parallel to the long side of the sensor. Sony may do fine focus adjustments using contrast detection. I can find no definitive source on whether Canon augments DPAF with contrast detection, but I seem to remember seeing claims it does not, for compatibility reasons with EF lenses, and all the explanations of RF system mirrorless I’ve seen from Canon mention only DPAF.

If there is no contrast detection, the current Canon cameras will not focus on lines parallel to the long side of the sensor no matter how good the light.

OM System (formerly Olympus) have QPAF on their OM-1 and probably other cameras. You guessed it, it stands for quad pixel AF and works with lines in any orientation. The irony is that their target market is mainly using the cameras on wildlife and landscape subjects where DPAF manages OK!

Aug 20, 2023 at 01:30 AM

crisdesign
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Unfortunately rf mount caps are pain due to really poor product design decision.

Aug 20, 2023 at 03:25 AM

robstein
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Mike_5D wrote:
What phone do you have? I've had zero problems with my Pixel 6 and R6. Once connected, it will reconnect automatically whenever the camera is powered on for hours.

The R6 uses the same cable release as the lower models. The R5 uses the same N3 connector as 5D series. I found a simple generic model for really cheap. I just use it for the occasional bulb exposure, which I find easier than an app. Functions I used to need the remote for are now accessible through the camera's UI or app.

I had to look up the phone... Samsung A53... Just an bog standard very average phone. When I get some time, I'll uninstall, reboot etc etc. If I get the GPS tagging going I'll be good. The rest of the app didn't look like much.

lol - I guess I just had a string of luck... 20D -> 7D -> 5D2 that were all the same plug. I know that remote in the dark, so swapping remotes is a pain.

Aug 21, 2023 at 11:44 PM

stanj
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

melcat wrote:
for compatibility reasons with EF lenses

Can you explain this? In live view, my EF-based DSLRs could all do contrast detect with EF lenses just fine, so I'm not sure why the newer RF based cameras could not do it, even with "just" an EF lens attached.

Aug 22, 2023 at 11:15 PM

melcat
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

stanj wrote:
Can you explain this? In live view, my EF-based DSLRs could all do contrast detect with EF lenses just fine, so I'm not sure why the newer RF based cameras could not do it, even with "just" an EF lens attached.

My Canon DSLRs are so old they have no AF in live view at all! The last Canon DSLRs have DPAF in live view just like the RF mount cameras, i.e. phase detection. I don’t know whether there was a middle period when Canon DSLRs were using contrast detection for live view.

Focussing using contrast detection means a kind of binary search where the camera changes the focus direction and selects a point between the highest contrast near and far results it has so far. As the iteration converges, the focus rack decreases until towards the end the lens is moving very short distances and changing direction often.The claim I have see is that ring ultrasonic motors as found in EF L lenses just aren’t very good at that, which may affect frame rate or prematurely wear out the lens, so Canon avoided using it. Phase detection, on the other hand, means the camera can do one calculation, send the lens there, and that’s it.

Aug 23, 2023 at 03:10 AM

stanj
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

melcat wrote:
My Canon DSLRs are so old they have no AF in live view at all! The last Canon DSLRs have DPAF in live view just like the RF mount cameras, i.e. phase detection. I don’t know whether there was a middle period when Canon DSLRs were using contrast detection for live view.

I know how Contrast Detection works. The 5D2 has contrast detection, as did my 1Ds3, with EF lenses. DPAF first appeared in the 70D, in 2013.

So back to my question, I don't see a reason why Canon couldn't use this with any lenses, especially if DPAF fails because the zebra is lying sideways? (or you taking a vertical photo of the zebra, I guess.)

Aug 23, 2023 at 06:29 PM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

stanj wrote:
I know how Contrast Detection works. The 5D2 has contrast detection, as did my 1Ds3, with EF lenses. DPAF first appeared in the 70D, in 2013.

So back to my question, I don't see a reason why Canon couldn't use this with any lenses, especially if DPAF fails because the zebra is lying sideways? (or you taking a vertical photo of the zebra, I guess.)

Yeah I believe the 5D3 was the same. It took about a week to focus in live view.

Aug 23, 2023 at 06:33 PM

Gochugogi
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

melcat wrote:
My Canon DSLRs are so old they have no AF in live view at all! The last Canon DSLRs have DPAF in live view just like the RF mount cameras, i.e. phase detection. I don’t know whether there was a middle period when Canon DSLRs were using contrast detection for live view.

Focussing using contrast detection means a kind of binary search where the camera changes the focus direction and selects a point between the highest contrast near and far results it has so far. As the iteration converges, the focus rack decreases until towards the end the lens is moving...Show more →

The 70D, 77D, 80D, 90D and 5D MK IV all had dual pixel AF in LV and video modes (several Rebel and late model 1D series did too). My 90D even had eye focus AF in LV/video and it worked well.

Aug 23, 2023 at 06:58 PM

melcat
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

stanj wrote:
The 5D2 has contrast detection, as did my 1Ds3, with EF lenses.

I did take the trouble to check the Live View section of the instruction manual for my 1Ds Mk III before writing my post last night.

Today I tested my 1Ds Mk III and EF 35mm f/1.4 L: the camera has no autofocus whatsoever in live view.

So back to my question, I don't see a reason why Canon couldn't use this with any lenses, especially if DPAF fails because the zebra is lying sideways? (or you taking a vertical photo of the zebra, I guess.)

I imagine they think QPAF is around the corner, it is not hurting them in the market, and the engineering effort to integrate contrast detection isn’t worth it. For all I know, they don’t even have a contrast detection implementation lying around from a previous camera.

Aug 23, 2023 at 10:13 PM

stanj
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

melcat wrote:
I did take the trouble to check the Live View section of the instruction manual for my 1Ds Mk III before writing my post last night

Sadly I no longer have my 1Ds3 nor 5D2, but while I didn't check the user manual of the 1Ds3, I did check that of the 5D2 and that camera definitely had it

Aug 24, 2023 at 12:11 AM

melcat
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

stanj wrote:
Sadly I no longer have my 1Ds3 nor 5D2, but while I didn't check the user manual of the 1Ds3, I did check that of the 5D2 and that camera definitely had it

Yes. Strangely, on page 121 the manual says live view could have trouble with subjects consisting of only horizontal lines! Perhaps that’s incorrect and another example of how dreadful Canon’s camera manuals are. Perhaps they really did only implement the contrast calculation in one direction.

Aug 24, 2023 at 04:27 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

@robstein: battery life with the R6II can vary greatly depending on what you're photographing and how you're using the camera. I've gotten a huge range from the low hundreds to ~4,000 on a single charge. The more you review images, have IBIS/IS running, and shoot RAW (bigger files mean more data transfer and heat buildup at the card slot interface), the lower the number of shots per charge. I also generally leave the camera in airplane mode, though I do have the EVF set for high fps/smooth viewing experience. For average sports events, I'd guess I get about 1,500 images per battery. The more downtime there is between shots seems to decrease shots per charge because power hungry systems continue to operate, to some degree.

Options to address 'range anxiety' while in the field include bringing a PD capable power brick with which you can charge the battery in-camera when the camera is off and not in use. If the power brick can deliver >30W, it can also power the camera during use (though a battery still needs to be in the camera/grip). Note that only the newest 'NH' LP-E6 style batteries support in-camera charging, therefore it would be good to have at least a couple of these. I also bought some of the Neewer knock-offs, in part because they came with a USB dual-battery charger that I bring in case I need to charge a battery or two in the field while using the camera. You can also buy a corded LP-E6 dummy battery to power the camera via a power brick if you don't have a 30W+ PD capable brick to power the camera via its USB port. Point is, there are options to keep you powered up and shooting. I have all these - >30W PD brick, dummy LP-E6, many spares, etc... but I haven't needed them as much as I thought I would when I first transitioned to mirrorless last fall. In fact, I've rarely needed them. For the most part I'm able to charge batteries fast enough with the two Canon chargers that came with my cameras, which I sometimes augment with the Neewer dual battery USB charger when I need to charge more batteries in the same period of time.

Aug 24, 2023 at 10:34 AM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Mirrorless battery life is more correlated to on-time than shot count. I can shoot a 60 minute game with lots of bursts, and finish with 1500 shots and 60% battery remaining. Or I can walk around all day with the camera awake and get a few hundred shots on two batteries.

I just did a time lapse with the R6. I got 648 shots on an LP-E6NH over 3.5 hours before the battery died. That is one shot every 20 seconds, so it spent a lot of that time with the LCD on. I could have saved more power by dropping the LCD brightness and enabling airplane mode.

Aug 24, 2023 at 12:26 PM

robstein
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Funny enough I have the screen flipped closed (I grew up on film and don't chimp much) but it's likely the time that is getting me..... To play I wandered around in the city a chunk of the day - went to lunch and so on. Not a lot of shots but longer time between shots. I never turn the camera off and I did extend the auto off time as I'm used to a long auto off in the DSLR world - figuring with the screen off it would be fine. Not that I ran it dry but it was far lower than I expected at the end of the day.

Strangely enough, I'm really liking Manual with auto ISO (I put the aperture change to thumb dial as far more comfortable than the wheel on the back - sorry not sure of right word for buttons and knobbled the auto ISO so it stays away from ISO hundreds and thousands)..... First camera for me with auto ISO. I'm going to make this my default mode now.

Jury still out on the 24-240 for me.... If I stop peaking at RAW images without correction it's going to grow on me... but it's a bit like driving around with a body in the trunk - there is this secret just under a cover.

Aug 24, 2023 at 10:17 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

Three LP-E6NH batteries should be enough for most days. If not then get the grip with two batteries and have two more as a spare set.

EBH

Aug 24, 2023 at 10:49 PM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Impressions - 1 Week into R6ii

robstein wrote:
Funny enough I have the screen flipped closed (I grew up on film and don't chimp much) but it's likely the time that is getting me..... To play I wandered around in the city a chunk of the day - went to lunch and so on. Not a lot of shots but longer time between shots. I never turn the camera off and I did extend the auto off time as I'm used to a long auto off in the DSLR world - figuring with the screen off it would be fine. Not that I ran it dry but it...Show more →

M + Auto ISO is awesome. It's practically all I use since getting the R6. I don't even have a dial dedicated to ISO anymore. I just access it through the M.Fn menu on the rare occasions that I need to lock down the ISO.

The 24-240 corrections are overblown. My default LR import presets enable lens corrections for all of my lenses, so I never see the black corners or barrel distortion on the 24-240. 99% of viewers won't notice or care about some reduced corner resolution. That's something for forum users to complain about.

Aug 24, 2023 at 11:25 PM

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