Canon EOS R6 PHOTOGRAPHY review (res, noise, DR, AF, MF, fps, GPS)

hi everyone i'm gordon from camera labs and in this video i'm going to review the photo quality and features of the canon eos r6 yes you heard that right a camera review on youtube that doesn't mention video i know many of you are mostly or even only interested in cameras for their stills capabilities but i wasn't prepared for the overwhelming positive feedback on my earlier r5 photo review so by popular demand the more affordable r6 model is going to get the same treatment for me right here in this video i'll be examining the resolution noise dynamic range focus stabilization and continuous shooting of the eos r6 for stills photography along with making a bunch of comparisons to help you decide if it's right for you in particular you'll see how it compares directly against the eos r and rp for those who are thinking of upgrading along with how it also measures up against the higher end eos r5 is it worth spending the extra you're going to find out my approach here is going to be the same as on the r5 review so for an overview of the basics like the design controls and general features check out my initial eos r6 hands-on first looks video there's no point repeating all that here so in this video i'll be jumping straight into real life handling and stills performance in detail now if you're a video or hybrid shooter check out my separate review of the r6 movie capabilities oh and if you've already seen my r5 review for photographers you'll recognize many of the tests here but everything i'm going to show you in this video was retested and repeated for the r6 and i've also added some new angles and updated details that are relevant to both models to keep it fresh so keep watching even if you're mostly interested in the r5 as there's going to be some useful information that i've discovered since making that r5 review all my tests sample images and results in this video were also made with a boxed final production r6 and all of my rf lenses were updated to their latest firmware that's required to support the best stabilization now if you need to update your rf lens firmware search for the particular model in the support section of your local canon website download and unpack the file onto a formatted memory card then start the process from the camera's firmware version option in the setup menus now like all my videos today this one isn't sponsored by anybody and i'm also trying to minimize the youtube ads for the best viewing experience so if you find any of my work useful at all please do show your appreciation with a like and a follow believe it or not 85 of the people watching my videos are not yet subscribers so come on it only takes a moment to click those buttons and it really does help to support a channel and allow it to grow thanks and now on with the review starting with the handling the eos r6 felt solid and comfortable in my hands but definitely more mid-range than the eos r5 the r6 has a magnesium alloy chassis with a polycarbonate exterior versus magnesium alloy for both the chassis and body on the r5 this makes the r6 slightly lighter and while canon does describe both as being weather and dust resistant the r6 is equivalent to the 6d mark ii versus the improved 5d level of the r5 now if you're coming from the eos rp or a mid-range dslr i reckon you'll be completely satisfied but 7d 5d and even some eos r owners may feel it lacks the ultimate toughness that they're used to and may want to aim for the r5 instead in news though i had no personal complaints with the build of the r6 and felt the biggest physical difference between it and the higher end r5 was actually their mode control the r5 inherits the top screen and mode wheel of the original r while the r6 opts for a simpler non-lockable mode dial that's similar to the rp now this can't help but give it more of an entry-level look and feel but with just one dial to turn you may actually find the r6 quicker to switch between modes and like the r5 it will also remember different settings for stills and video that said eos r owners looking to upgrade may miss their top screens albeit perhaps not the touch bar despite the basic model though canon's thankfully not compromised the main control system with the r6 providing the same three dials and joystick of the r5 on the rear giving it more direct and traditional operation than the rnrp although unlike those models the rear thumbwheel doesn't tilt like a joypad as the joystick now provides that functionality everything is customizable too and separately for stills and movies if you like strangely though the joystick isn't enabled for direct af area movement by default though so i'd suggest turning that on straight away if the af area finds itself in a far corner a simple push down on the joystick will return it to the center i also wanted to mention the dual card slots while it's not possible to record video to them both simultaneously you can of course still record photos to both cards at the same time on the r6 which is invaluable for backups or unrepeatable events as you shoot and then a nice advantage over the higher end r5 the absence of really high bitrate video means both of the card slots on the r6 use the affordable sd format in contrast if you buy the r5 and want to back up your photos as you shoot one of your cards has to be an expensive cf express model even if you never film a second of video in terms of composition the 3.69 million dot viewfinder with 0.76 times magnification matches the original eos r in size and detail but surpasses the budget rp on both it's also more detailed than the sony a73 the eos r5z finder beats all those models on resolution though with 5.69 million dots which matches the sony a7r4 and lumix s1r although sony's latest a7s mark iii takes the viewfinder crown right now boasting 9.44 million dots and 0.91 times modification like the eos r5 you can switch the viewfinder refresh rate between the default 60 hertz and the smoother but more power hungry 120 hertz the 120 hertz modes really do look silky smooth when panning swiftly for action but i actually found the 60hz mode was perfectly adequate for following the fast and erratic seagulls of brighton while also maximizing my battery life and i'll show you a bunch of examples of that in action in just a moment and while the flip screen may initially appeal more to video shooters at first glance i find them invaluable to comfortably frame still photos in the portrait orientation at high or low angles so don't dismiss them for still photography moving on to photo quality the 20 megapixel sensor inherited from the eos 1dx mark iii captures images with 5472 by 3648 pixels there's three smaller sizes available for compressed jpeg or hif files but raw files are all recorded at the full 20 megapixel resolution and available in normal or compressed versions you can record images in the native 3x2 shape or in a 1x1 4x3 or 16x9 as well as in a 1.6 times crop for use with aps-c lenses where the resolution falls to 7.7 megapixels meanwhile if you enable hdr pq in the menus the r6 switches its jpegs to the hif format with the same size and accompanying raw options now software support for hitfiles remains in its infancy but with a 10-bit dynamic range on the r6 they capture a greater tunnel range than standard jpegs without the need to post-process raw to give you an idea of what's possible the r6 like the r5 and 1dx3 before it lets you convert hif to jpeg in camera from the playback menus in this shot of brighton p you can see how the sky looks washed out and completely saturated on the hiff file but by automatically adjusting its levels and converting it into a jpeg in camera you can clearly see how the bright highlight detail has been successfully recovered here's the same shot in playback on the r6 starting with the hif version where the tones are bunched up to the left in the histogram and now for the converted jpeg version where the cameras stretched out the tones across the histogram moving on to resolving power i tested the r6 by photographing a standard chart before zooming in for closer examination and comparison i'm going to show you how it compares side by side with the three other esr cameras as well as the sony a7 mark iii now all four esr cameras were fitted with exactly the same rf 50 millimeter f 1.2 lens all close to f8 for optimal sharpness and we're also going to be examining near the middle of the frame where again the optics are going to perform at their best first up the r6 at the top and the r5 in the bottom where as you'd expect the 45 megapixel r5 is comfortably out resolving its more affordable 20 megapixel sibling but for many the more important comparison will be against the original eos r seen here in the bottom now the esr shares the same 30 megapixel sensor as the eos 5d mark iv so it's representing that model too and it certainly resolves a little more than the r6 in a technical test but perhaps not by as much as you'd expect from its 10 extra megapixels i think this test may reassure eos r owners who are understandably not relishing a downgrading resolution if they went for the r6 switching the eos off the budget rp again at the bottom which recycles the 26 megapixel sensor from the el 60 mark ii and you'll see a result that roughly matches the r6 despite its six extra megapixels so if you were to upgrade from the rp to the r6 you're not going to be losing any detail in your photos not significantly anyway so the r5 as you'd expect delivers the most detailed images in the eos r range but the surprise may be just how close the r6 comes to the r and rp just one more resolution comparison before moving on this time against the sony a73 which has a slightly high resolution 24 megapixel sensor you can see here that the sony is slightly out resolving the r6 as you'd expect but while you can measure the difference on a test chart it doesn't make a huge difference for life subjects so in the 20 to 30 megapixel range i'd say the choice boils down more to other features and the system as a whole and if you're after a really serious boost in resolving power you're gonna have to go for models like the r5 or the a7 r4 s1r or nikon z7 to compare noise levels i photographed this still life composition with all four esr cameras again all using the same rf 50mm 1.2 lens close to f8 and each of their iso sensitivities before then cropping into outer camera jpegs for closer examination oh and i had auto lighting optimizer switched off for all of these cameras now i had to use jpegs here because raw support was still in beta at the time of testing i don't think it's fair to use a beta when comparing this number of models hopefully i'll have a raw comparison available at cameralabs.com later all the images were taken with identical exposures so any difference you see in brightness is down to their actual sensitivity variations at each value i've cropped the same section of flowers with final cuts scaling them to the high to the frame so high resolution body should reveal greater detail at least at lower isos but may begin to suffer at higher sensitivities i'd love to hear which camera you think is delivering the better results let's start with the eos r6 on the left and the r5 on the right first at 100 iso then 200 iso 400 iso 800 iso 1600 iso 3200 iso 6400 iso 12 800 iso 25 600 iso and finally 51 200 iso which is the maximum for the r5 and i hope you appreciate the slightly longer gap that i gave you to look at those compared to my r5 review the r6 continues alone to 102 400 iso and as you'd expect the r5 out resolves the r6 at the low sensitivities but actually i think impressively keeps a lead throughout this series next the r6 still on the left with the original eos r on the right hand side which again also represents the eos 5d mark iv dslr first at 100 iso then 200 iso 400 eight hundred sixteen hundred thirty two hundred sixty four hundred twelve thousand eight hundred twenty five thousand six 600 and finally 51 200 iso for the r6 and 40 000 iso for the r because that's its maximum sensitivity i'd say the r6 is delivering visibly more detail at high isos than the older eos r so it does represent an upgrade in low light or at high sensitivities and finally for the r6 still on the left and the budget rp now on the right which also represents the el 60 mark ii dslr first at 100 iso 200 iso 400 800 1600 3200 sixty four hundred twelve thousand eight hundred twenty five thousand six hundred and finally fifty one thousand two hundred iso for the r6 on the left and 40 000 iso for the rp on the right which is its maximum sensitivity again i'd say the r6 is retaining finer detail at high isos far better than the rp making it a decent upgrade for those who shoot in low light or at high sensitivities either with the rp or the 6d mark ii dslr to see what's possible in terms of dynamic range here's a photo that i took with the r6 underneath brighton pier where detail in the dark shadows and bright highlight areas in the sky are completely lost now i took this as a raw file and at the time i made this video the raw files were not compatible with adobe photoshop but adobe had released a beta version of their dng converters so i've converted the raw file into a dng using that beta software and opened it here in camera raw 12.3 this is running under photoshop you can see here that the file is the dng extension so the first thing to do is to look at the histogram and see the highlight levels here on the far right side and if i just reduce the exposure right down you can see that some of that highlight detail has been retrieved at the other end of the scale if i really boost that exposure all the way up you can see that there is still plenty of detail available underneath the pier and if i zoom in and have a look around that is pretty clean although this was taken at 100 iso so if i reset that back to zero let's see if we can get both highlight and shadow detail back in this particular shot so to do that i'm going to reduce the highlight slider until i get some color back in the sky you can see that in particular on the right hand side here you may also notice the moon making an appearance here in the top left corner and then i'm going to boost the shadows a lot i really want to see what's underneath and that although it looks really unrealistic to me at least shows that you can retrieve both highlight and shadow detail on a single frame you may want to boost the exposure a little bit here for something that doesn't look too unrealistic so how does that look to you does it provide the kind of damage range you're looking for let me know in the comments but what is certain is that if i reset that to how the picture started off you can see that the camera has certainly got potential for tonal retrieval in blown highlights and shadow areas moving on the r6 and r5 become canon's first eos cameras with built-in censorship stabilization or ibis for short which in theory should reduce shake on any lens you attach new and old lenses with optical image stabilization work alongside the sensor system and there's no way to choose one or the other they're either both on or both off and you enable or disable them with the is switch on the lens barrel once again remember to update the firmware on any rf lenses you have with is for the best stabilization results and of course i did that for the following tests to find out how it performs i tested it with three different lenses starting with the rf 2470 2.8 l which you can see here first at 70 mil with stabilization disabled where the view is wobbly now after flicking its is switch on the lens barrel you'll see the view visibly become much steadier also notice the plus symbol next to the hand icon indicating enhanced stabilization and you'll see that on firmware updated rf lenses that have is the plus simple does not appear when using ef lenses with is although the body will still work alongside the optical stabilization just not as effectively as it does with rf models canon quotes up to eight stops of compensation with the rf 24-70 at 70 mil although in my own tests i managed five stops over my unstabilized shots with this lens next for an unstabilized rf lens the rf 50mm f 1.2 l first without stabilization enabled where the view is wobbly during composition now for unstabilized lenses you enable the ibis from the camera menus before returning to a much steadier and much more desirable composition experience steadier views while composing is one of the major benefits of ibiz for me and it transforms the usability of lenses like the 50mm 1.2 rf-85 1.2 and rf-2870 f2 note the hand icon no longer has a plus symbol as the lens does not include its own optical stabilization now canon quotes an ambitious seven stops of compensation with the rf 50mm 1.2 on the r6 although in my own test i actually only managed four compared to my shots without ibis and now for an unstabilized ef lens my old ef 85 mil 1.8 adapted to the r6 body and showing a shaky image in the viewfinder with the ibis disabled after enabling is in the menu the view during composition again becomes much steadier and while it's arguably not quite as effective as the rf 50mm in my previous example it still makes it considerably more usable again note the hand icon missing the plus symbol although this applies to all ef lenses whether they have is or not this time i managed to handhold five stops slower than without ibis although in my tests with the r5 it was actually nearer to four these are variations due to the nature of the tests and the resolutions of the sensors now everyone's experience differs with is but while my own results fell several stops below canon's ambitious quotes ibis on the r695 was still extremely valuable giving me five stops of compensation with native ios lenses and four to five with everything else plus as you saw in my demos it's not just about hand holding longer exposures but also enjoying a much steadier view as you can pose it's brilliant to finally have ibis on canon eos cameras and a key reason to upgrade from any earlier eos body weather mirrorless or dslr just remember to update the firmware on any rf lenses that you have with is for the best results moving on to focus starting with the single one-shot mode a single af area and the rf 24-70 2.8 at 70mm 2.8 as you can see focusing with the native rf lens on the r6 is a very swift experience with the camera locking onto the subject almost instantly i have no complaints focusing with native rf lenses on the r6 and i've got more examples in just a moment but first how about focusing with an adapted df lens here's my ef 85mm 1.8 prime lens again and while it's not as fast as the previous rf zoom it's still focusing as quickly as it would on a dslr the slow speed is mostly down to this particular lens i feel canon's done a great job at focusing adapted vf lenses in live view starting with its dslrs and now maturing onto its full-frame mirrorless system it makes them very very usable and that's important if you've got an existing ef lens collection canon's also improved its face and eye detection on the r6 and r5 and here you can see in action on the r6 fitted with the rf 24-72.8 at around 35mm f 2.8 previously the only other system which could lock onto an eye at this distance was sony but now canon's effectively matched it while also tracking the subject's head when it turns away the speed response and stickiness to the r6's af system represents a major upgrade over the esr and rp and becomes one of the most effective on the market eye detection isn't just for human subjects though cannons added animal eye detection for dogs cats and even birds for the best results especially with birds you'll need to remember to switch the subject from human to animal in the menus but if you forget it'll still work just less confidently since i'd already tried the r5 with the rs70 to 200 2.8 in my previous review i thought i'd test the r6 with the cheaper rf 24 to 240 mil super zoom here which slows to f 6.3 at the long end it proved to not be quite as responsive as the 7200 2.8 in my test with the seagulls in flight but the af area box still managed to track them effectively around the frame even switching to their eyes when they were close enough i'll show you a bunch of examples in a moment but just for now here's a frame i'll enlarge in playback with the r6 showing good results even when the camera had little time to respond and while sony can also track birds in flight effectively it won't yet go as far as to offer eye detection for birds so a technology win for canon over its rival there here's the r6 again auto focusing with the rf 24-72.8 at 72.8 and you can see that the autofocus works very quickly but how about manual focus if i just switch that on the lens barrel you can see the distance scale up here and as i adjust it you can manually focus now what makes this much easier is being able to magnify the picture here at five times and press it again for a 10 times view and remember everything you see on the screen here is also replicated in the viewfinder a key benefit over a dslr but wait there's a variety of assistance available starting with the focus guide now notice those two little green pointers there which now separate and bounce back and forth a bit like a metronome when the focus is spot on at least in the square that you have positioned you'll see them go green that is the camera telling you that you have achieved perfect focus now unfortunately that only works when you're looking at the full view if you zoom in as i have there that little assistance disappears alternatively you could go for focus peaking and as usual it's available in a variety of colors and strengths i think i'm going to go for the red color here now this is going to highlight areas in red which have the highest contrast i.e the ones are in focus you can see here as i turn the manual focusing ring that band of red go back and forth indicating the area's in focus now again if i zoom in on that picture you lose focus peaking although zooming in again does at least illustrate how easy it is to nail manual focus with that magnified view and again the benefit of mirrorless is that you get to see that magnified view through the electronic viewfinder it really makes focusing so much easier moving on to the drive modes the r6 has the choice of three shutters the default electronic first curtain which reduces noise and vibration by opening the shutter electronically but closing it mechanically to avoid artifacts or you can choose fully mechanical or fully electronic shutters the latter operating in full silence but with the usual caveats here's a series of bursts taken with the electronic first curtain shutter and 12 frames per second drive while panning with the r6 at 100 mil and as you'd expect the tall tower and buildings are all vertical next the series panning at the same speed but with the fully electronic shutter and 20 frames per second drive and this time notice how the tower and buildings are sloping to the side this skewing effect is down to the sensor readout speed and is visible on most electronic shutter modes although different cameras suffer to different degrees i found the r60s electronic shutter proved worse than the r5 for skewing presumably due to a slower sensor readout so do use it with caution also beware of using any electronic shutter under artificial lighting as you may experience banding effects due to flickering so as always electronic shutters can be great for achieving high bursts or of course shooting in silence but just be aware of their limitations the normal shutter itself is fairly quiet and used though and here's how the default electronic first curtain mode sounds and now for the fully mechanical shutter which is a little louder but far from obtrusive next let's have a burst with the electronic first cursor and shutter which canon quotes is running at a top speed of 12 frames per second in the h mode notice the green h plus icon on the screen which indicates the top 12 frames per second speed is achievable but you may notice this turn white or even start flashing in some situations indicating slower maximum speeds to achieve 12 frames per second you'll need to be using one of the latest lp e6 nh battery packs and with at least sixty percent charge remaining if the charge falls below this you may find the r6 and the r5 dropping to around nine frames per second while displaying a white h plus icon or even just below 7 frames per second if the icon's white and flashing if you use an older battery pack or certain older lenses you'll also experience slower speeds and as far as i know third-party batteries are also unable to deliver the maximum 12 frames per second so just be aware to demonstrate the speed difference with varying battery charge here's the r6 burst again with the green h plus icon so this is it running at its top speed and now here's the eos r5 where its battery level had fallen to a lower charge and that's resulting in the white icon and a slower speed so listen to this for comparison so you'll need a new battery with a decent charge level and a compatible lens to enjoy the top speeds from the r6 and r5 but 12 frames per second still isn't to be sniffed out and represents a big step up from the previous esr cameras while also slightly beating sony's 10 frames per second mechanical bursts coupled with the upgraded autofocus system it allows you to easily capture quick bursts of action these shots of mark riding his skateboard were taken by ben harvey using the r6 while i used the r5 alongside ben used the rf 35mm 1.8 on the r6 and as an existing eos r owner he really noticed the faster drive speed and increased confidence in focusing on the new model many thanks to ben and mark for their help here and if you're interested in following them check out their channels and instagram accounts below for approaching subjects i photographed a series of cyclists using the r6 and the rf24 to 240 at 240 ml of 6.3 i'd already seen how well the r6 and r5 shot with the higher end rf 7200 2.8 l so i wanted to see how well a more affordable lens would perform the answer in sure is very well i simply enabled face detection from the af menu ensured that the subject was set to human set the drive speed to h plus lick green thanks to a sufficiently charged battery and just let the camera do the rest in almost every case it locks straight onto the desired subject and track their face throughout the burst and across the frame lasting several seconds at a time playing back the images revealed a 100 hit rate and the time stamps confirmed that the r6 was capturing and maintaining a speed of 12 frames per second with the electronic first curtain shutter and once again that was with a battery with a decent charge level i then switched the fully electronic shutter mode which increases the maximum potential speed to 20 frames per second but otherwise the experience was exactly the same with the r6 easily locking onto faces and tracking them across the frame as they approached and once again checking the timestamps confirmed the full speed at 20 frames per second as for skewing artifacts you may notice the background wobbling a little between frames in these sequences but other than that the results were very usable for approaching subjects for a greater challenge i turned the r6 and 24 to 240 to brighton seagulls again using face tracking but with the subject change from human to animal this time my experience was a little bit mixed depending on the background behind the birds so long as the birds were well defined the r6 easily locked onto them but when flying in front of a busy background it struggled from time to time albeit locking back on once the bird cleared the clutter i put this down to the rf 24 to 240 at 240 mil 6.3 not really providing sufficient subject separation at long distances for the auto focus system to work as well as it does with lenses that deliver shallower depth of field effects certainly when switching to the rf 70 to 200 2.8 l that improved my hit rate against busy backgrounds as it did with the r5 to put it in perspective though the r6 still delivered a very high hit rate with the rf 24 to 240 mil just missing out on the virtual perfection i experienced with the 70-200 oh and i also achieved and maintained 12 frames per second bursts with the electronic first current shutter when taking picture the birds although again my battery did have a good charge level i also wanted to try out the r6's fully electronic shutter for birds in flight for those who desired 20 frames per second and or silent shooting once again the r6 successfully tracked and captured almost perfect sequences of the birds as they darted around the frame and again the time stamps confirmed the 20 frames per second speed with the rf 24-240 zoom as for the impact of rolling shutter the bird shaped looked generally well behaved but as i panned quickly to follow them some of the backgrounds with buildings on them suffered a little from skewing you may notice it on the pier in the background of some sequences here where it appears to be sloping a little is it a problem only you can say as someone who's very familiar with this view some of the backgrounds do look a little bit odd to me personally but if you weren't familiar with the location or simply weren't paying too much attention for any artifacts you may not notice it at all so i put it to you has skewing spoil the images in this section or is it acceptable either way if you do have a background or subject that is susceptible to rolling shutter you can always switch the electronic first curtain mode and still enjoy a respectable speed up to 12 frames per second without making too much of a racket and as i concluded in my earlier reviews it's the speed and confidence of the r5 and r6 which will be most apparent to existing eos r and rp owners and arguably one of the biggest reasons to upgrade oh and i never experienced any overheating on the r6 when shooting still photos even during long bursts on a hot day the r6 may lack the dp raw portrait re-lighting and background clarity tricks of the r5 but still has a bunch of useful extra shooting modes including a multiple exposure mode with up to 9 frames in-camera hdr with a variety of effects focus bracketing for up to 999 shots albeit without in-camera stacking a built-in interval timer and a separate mode that can generate time-lapse movies in camera switch the mode to bulb and the bulb timer becomes unlocked allowing you to preset a long exposure of several minutes or even hours if you like if you pair the camera over bluetooth with the canon app on your phone you can also use your phone as a responsive remote shutter control and that eliminates the need for a cable release accessory for some photographers although an e3 type remote terminal is also provided like most new cameras there's no built-in gps receiver but once paired with your phone over bluetooth the r6 can seamlessly acquire and embed your position on images as you can see here by brighton pier of course the accuracy is entirely dependent on your phone and where you keep it i used a galaxy s20 and found it worked most reliably in the top of my backpack rather than in a trouser pocket the link should resume upon power up of the camera so long as the app's running but if the gps symbol is flashing on screen you'll need to reconnect okay now for a bunch of sample images i took with the final production eos r6 around brighton and all the jpegs out of camera i've uploaded a selection to my flickr account for you to download in their original format and there's links for my r6 review at cameralabs.com if you'd like to take a closer look i was fond of the output from the r6 with clean images even at high isos and pleasing colors straight out of camera obviously a 20 megapixel sensor isn't going to win any resolution contests but the real life output was virtually indistinguishable from 24 and 26 megapixel rivals in my tests and even the 30 megapixels of the original esr didn't make a significant difference i feel this is a crucial point to make since many eos r owners may be looking for upgrades in speed and handling but understandably feel hesitant to lose one-third of their total megapixels point the r and r6 at a test chart and you'll certainly see the art out resolving it but not by much and importantly the r6 delivers more detail at high isos so in terms of quality you're unlikely to notice the resolution drop but you will see the improved high iso performance while reveling in the far better auto focus drive speed ibis and twin card slots i also think it's worth remembering that while the r6 may not boast the higher megapixels of most rivals no one complains about the image quality from the 1dx mark iii which after all shares the same sensor the eos r6 may be overshadowed by the headline grabbing r5 but quietly becomes one of the most compelling cameras in canon's range compared to the r5 it may lack the 45 megapixels 8k video slow motion 4k more detailed viewfinder and slightly tougher build but it's more notable just how much they have in common especially in terms of photography alone buy the r6 and you'll get the same built-in stabilization the same rear controls the same screen articulation and crucially the same auto focus and drive system that allows both cameras to confidently track just about any subject with a very high degree of success and by lacking the high bitrate video of the r5 the r6 can also make both of its card slots use the more affordable sd format leaving r5 photographers to curse the necessity that one of their cards has to be a pricey cf express model if they want backup even if they never shoot video what's not to like the ibis may not have delivered the quoted compensation in my test but still proved invaluable the battery life could be higher plus you'll need a decent charge level to achieve the top drive speeds but you can at least charge and power the camera over usb the electronic shutter is susceptible to more skewing than the r5 and the basic top controls can't help but look more entry level than the price suggests but they do at least let you quickly adjust the mode and the rear controls are all present and correct probably the biggest issue for potential buyers is the relatively low sounding 20 megapixel resolution especially for the price and while it's true that the r6 is technically out resolved by many rivals when comparing test charts you may not actually notice much difference in real life however you're much more likely to notice the speed and handling though which is up there with the r5 making it one of the most responsive and capable mirrorless cameras on the market as a photo only camera the r6 will undoubtedly be tempting to existing canon owners including those with eos r and rp although if you're not brand loyal most rivals will undercut it on price sony's a73 is older but actually delivers a similar feature set at a comfortably lower price as does the nikon z6 and you should also keep an eye on the panasonic lumix s system meanwhile if you're a hybrid shooter who takes photos and some video the r6 can film excellent quality 4k video up to 60p although i did personally experience overheating in all 4k modes even at 24 to 30p where my own camera had to cool down after recording 35 to 40 minutes worth now i'll be talking much more about this in my separate r6 movie review but for now i will add that i experienced no overheating issues when filming 1080p or shooting photos on the r6 and even when the heat prevents you from filming any more 4k you can still switch to 1080 or stills on the r6 and keep working ultimately the eos r6 cunningly gives you what's arguably the best parts of the r5 at a much more affordable price if you don't need 45 megapixels 8k video or 4k slow motion then the r6 pretty much matches what's left at around two thirds the price sure the r5 also gives you a top screen slightly tougher build and more detailed viewfinder but the most important aspects of handling and speed are all available on the r6 don't get hung up on the relatively low sounding resolution either as the image quality is more than adequate for all but the most detailed hungry photographers indeed since the quality is sufficient say for me personally i think i'd sooner get the r6 with the lens rather than the r5 body alone if you're an existing canon owner looking to move into mirrorless or wanting to upgrade from the rorp you won't be disappointed right that's it for this particular video and i hope you enjoyed my separate approach to stills and video again i think i'll still combine them for most future camera videos but when there's so much to talk about on a higher end model i think it's worth splitting them into two separate reviews what do you think either way if you found any of this useful you can tip me with a like and a follow it only takes a moment and really makes a big difference and as always if i've saved you any money or kept you entertained you can make my day with a coffee donation or treat yourself with a copy of my in-camera photography book or how about a camera labs t-shirt or mug there's links for all of this along with price checking in the description and pin comment thanks for watching look out for my other r6 reviews and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Gordon Laing

Views: 265,363

Rating: 4.9552612 out of 5

Keywords: Canon, EOS, R6, vs, R5, photography, review, A7 III, EOS R, EOS RP

Id: O6E6aGswzcE

Length: 36min 25sec (2185 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/SundayFunday12345]

Thank you for finding this review. I did not know this camera has a handy manual 'focus guide' (21mins) feature and the battery performance deteriorates if the charge is not high or the official Canon model (24mins). The autofocus looks fantastic and another level with moving subjects.

Alas, I will wait for the future a7iv or get the current a7iii. Canon R6 battery life and price looks to be almost half the performance and more than a third higher in price where I live. Having used the older Fuji X and a7 camera bodies there were many occasions where I would was worried running out battery during multi day hikes, airshow or wildlife shooting. I tried the a7Rii and watching the percentage indicator drop quickly was alarming after using Canon DSLRs for so long.

On a whale and wildlife photography trips the ability to crop in the photo for distant subjects would also come in handy. The megapixel count is great, but I would be more comfortable with slightly more.

I think this is a great camera though and looking forward to future Canon DSLR and mirrorless cameras with all this technology.

[u/godzilla06_]

this will be my backup camera !