Canon EOS R6 II review: An excellent hybrid camera with few flaws

Sony and Canon are locked in a pitched battle for the full-frame mirrorless digicam market, and Canon’s newest salvo is the $2,500 EOS R6 II. It’s not only a key rival to Sony’s like-priced 33-megapixel A7 IV, however offers Canon the chance to rectify overheating flaws within the in any other case glorious EOS R6.

The brand new 24-megapixel sensor guarantees extra decision and picture high quality than the 20-megapixel R6. It additionally presents quicker taking pictures speeds, improved 4K video specs, an improved viewfinder and extra. The competitors on this class is getting robust, although. Panasonic additionally not too long ago introduced the $2,000 Lumix S5II and $2,200 S5IIX, its first cameras with phase-detect hybrid autofocus.

I noticed the R6 II final final yr in prototype kind, however I’ve now obtained my palms on the ultimate model. Can it sustain with the competitors, and are the overheating points solved? I attempted it in a wide range of taking pictures conditions to seek out out.

Physique and dealing with

Canon has experimented with the controls of previous cameras, introducing issues like a contact bar, however customers didn’t prefer it. Thankfully, the R6 II makes use of Canon’s tried and examined kind issue, with buttons, dials and the joystick proper the place you’d look forward to finding them. The grip is massive, snug and has a rubber-like materials, giving a certain maintain with no discomfort even after a day’s use.

There are just a few welcome adjustments over the R6, although. The facility swap is now at proper for simpler entry, with a “lock” setting that forestalls unintentional management activation (you may specify which controls to lock out).

Canon additionally launched a devoted photograph and video swap. Flipping it adjustments all of the settings for every button, in addition to the primary and fast menus. In case you flip from images to video, although, it makes use of no matter is ready on the mode dial (M, S, A, P, and many others.), so you must keep in mind to alter that. All different settings, although, stay separate.

As earlier than, it has a fully-articulating 1.62-million dot show that makes the R6 II helpful for vlogging, selfies, and many others. And Canon has up to date the EVF from 2.36-million to three.67-million dots, matching the A7 IV and eliminating certainly one of my greatest complaints concerning the unique R6. It’s not fairly as sharp because the 5.76-million dot EVF on the X-H2S, as an illustration, however it’s comparatively sharp and quick with a 120 fps refresh price.

The place the R6 had a single quick UHS-II card slot and a slower UHS-I slot, the R6 II now has two UHS-II slots. Not like the A7 IV or Panasonic GH6, although, it lacks any form of a CFexpress card slot which does have an effect on burst speeds and video seize choices.

It makes use of the identical LP-E6NH battery as earlier than, however endurance is up considerably from 510 pictures max on the R6 to just about 760 on the R6 II. I’ve taken nicely over 2,000 pictures in a day (with a mixture of digital and mechanical shutter), and shot video for practically two hours.

Naturally, it has microphone and headphone ports, together with a “next-generation” 21-pin digital interface on the sizzling shoe (Canon has proven pictures with the Tascam XLR2d-C audio interface and its newly launched Speedlite EL-5). Sadly, it makes use of a fragile micro as an alternative of a full HDMI port. That’s unlucky contemplating the RAW video output, as micro HDMI cables (and ports) are usually fragile and finicky.

By way of connectivity, you may run the digicam off the USB-C through the facility supply characteristic. It additionally presents Bluetooth 5 and 5GHz Wifi, and you should utilize it straight as a PC or Mac webcam over USB-C utilizing the built-in industry-standard UVC and UAC video and audio drivers constructed into Home windows and MacOS.

Efficiency

As I noticed in San Diego whereas taking pictures sports activities, the R6 II is quick. It might hearth bursts at 12 fps with the mechanical shutter, which is already a contact quicker than the A7 IV. Nevertheless, switching to digital mode brings that tempo as much as a frenzied 40 fps, making it the sportiest full-frame digicam on this worth class by far.

Utilizing digital mode means you’ll shoot fewer pictures although (it additionally impacts the standard, however extra on that shortly). You will get about 75 compressed RAW/JPEG frames earlier than the buffer fills, and fewer with uncompressed RAW. In mechanical shutter mode, against this, you may shoot round 1,000 compressed RAW/JPEG frames earlier than it stops, or about 140 uncompressed RAW images.

Talking of the buffer, an fascinating new characteristic is the Professional Seize mode. In case you activate that setting and half press the shutter button, it is going to constantly file and retailer a number of seconds value of images within the buffer. Then, whenever you full-press the shutter button, you’ll seize just a few seconds of motion that occurred proper earlier than you probably did so. The thought, after all, is that in case you weren’t fairly fast sufficient, you’ll nonetheless get a shot.

Rolling shutter is nicely managed, about half that of the unique R6 and considerably lower than the A7 IV, as you may see in exams carried out by Gerald Undone. I’d hesitate to make use of it for fast-moving sports activities at full-frame, however it’s very minimal in cropped 1.6x mode.

The Twin Pixel autofocus on the R6 II can also be faster and extra dependable than the R6. Utilizing it in single-point mode with no face/eye detection, it might sustain with the 40 fps burst speeds, lacking simply the odd shot. In 12 fps mechanical shutter mode, I not often had a shot out of focus. On this facet, it’s practically on par with the EOS R3, which makes use of a stacked sensor.

There are 4,897 focus detect positions for images and 4,067 for video, with as much as one hundred pc protection relying on the lens. Meaning you may monitor topics even on the fringe of the body. Deciding on a topic is comparatively simple utilizing the multi-controller joystick or touchscreen.

On prime of face and eyes, the R6 II can detect individuals’s our bodies, plus animals and autos, together with bikes, vehicles, trains and horses. It additionally comes with a brand new auto-select mode that lets the AI select the topic kind. It might additionally monitor user-selected topics not in these classes.

Whereas it will probably often get confused by the background, the R6 II is nice at locking onto human faces and eyes. It’s a bit much less reliable for animals and different topics. Monitoring fast-moving topics works nicely, although I needed to dive into the settings to spice up speeds for faster motion. Contact to trace works nicely if the topic is nicely outlined, however isn’t as dependable as face monitoring.

Normally, autofocus is great and second solely to Sony. As talked about, I shot hundreds of pictures per day at Canon’s taking pictures periods (on a prototype digicam), and most of them have been in focus, with little or no fiddling required on my half.

Picture High quality

The brand new 24-megapixel sensor (neither bottom illuminated nor stacked) is the largest enchancment on this digicam, providing improved picture high quality, higher low-light sensitivity and extra. Pictures are after all sharper, however Canon has additionally boosted the dynamic vary, permitting for improved picture high quality as nicely.

JPEGs have good ranges of element with out extreme sharpening. Coloration accuracy is nice and pores and skin tones extra pleasing than different cameras I’ve tried not too long ago. If you wish to increase high quality a bit however not shoot RAWs, you too can shoot utilizing the 10-bit HEIF (excessive effectivity picture file) format, which presents a wider colour vary and fewer chance of banding.

With an ISO vary of 100-102400 (50 to 204800 expanded), the R6 II is definitely higher than the unique R6 in low gentle, regardless of the additional decision. I had no qualms about taking pictures at ISO 12800 utilizing some gentle noise discount, and even ISO 25,600 pictures have been usable if I uncovered appropriately. Something above that had low usability, nevertheless.

RAW pictures retain further element, particularly in shadows. That makes pictures simpler to edit must you underexpose them. It has maybe a bit much less dynamic vary than Sony or Nikon full-frame cameras, however it’s nonetheless superb. Beware that dynamic vary drops in digital shutter mode, although, because the R6 II shifts from 14-bit to 12-bit seize – in order that further velocity does come at a slight loss in dynamic vary.