Canon EOS R6 II review: Excellent hybrid camera with few flaws

Sony and Canon are jostling for the full-frame mirrorless camera market, and Canon’s latest offering is the $2,500 EOS R6 II. It’s not just Sony’s main rival A7 IV 33 megapixelsbut gives Canon a chance to fix the overheating issues in the EOS R6.

New 24-megapixel sensor promises higher resolution and image quality than R6 20 megapixels. It also offers faster shutter speeds, improved 4K video specs, an improved viewfinder, etc. However, the competition in this category is getting tough. Panasonic also recently announced $2,000 Lumix S5II and $2,200 S5IIXThe company’s first camera with phase-detection hybrid autofocus.

pros

• Explosion speed is very fast
• Great autofocus
• Good battery life
• Powerful video specs

Defect

• Slightly lower image quality than competitors
• Video codec limitation

I saw the R6 II last year in prototype form, but now I have the final version in hand. Can it keep up with the competition, and are overheating issues resolved? I tried it in various shooting situations to find out.

Body and handle

Canon has tested the controls of previous cameras, introducing things like the touch bar, but users didn’t like this. Luckily, the R6 II uses Canon’s tried and tested form factor, with buttons, wheels, and joysticks right where you want to find them. The grip is large, comfortable, and has a rubber-like material that provides a firm, non-irritating grip even after a day of use.

However, there are some welcome changes compared to the R6. The power switch is now on the right for easier access, with a “lock” setting that prevents accidental activation of the controls (you can specify which controls to lock).

Canon also introduced a dedicated photo and video converter. Flipping it changes all the settings for each button, as well as the main menu and quick menu. However, if you switch from photo to video, it will use whatever is set on the mode dial (M, S, A, P, etc.), so you have to remember to change that. However, all other settings remain separate.

As before, it has a fully articulating 1.62 million-dot display that makes the R6 II useful for vlogs, selfies, etc. And Canon has updated the EVF from 2.36 million to 3. .67 million points, matching the A7 IV and eliminating one of my biggest complaints about the original R6. It’s not quite as sharp as EVF 5.76 million points on X-H2Sbut it’s relatively sharp and fast with a 120fps refresh rate.

While the R6 has one fast UHS-II card slot and one slower UHS-I slot, the R6 II now has two UHS-II slots. However, unlike the A7 IV or the Panasonic GH6, it doesn’t have any kind of CFexpress card slot that affects the continuous shooting speed and video recording options.

It uses the same LP-E6NH battery as before, but endurance increases dramatically from up to 510 shots on the R6 to almost 760 shots on the R6 II. I took over 2,000 photos in one day (a combination of electronic and mechanical shutters) and recorded video for almost two hours.

Naturally, it has microphone and headphone ports, along with a “next-generation” 21-pin digital interface in the dock (Canon showed an image with Tascam XLR2d-C audio interface and it’s new Flashlight EL-5). Sadly, it uses a flimsy microphone instead of a full HDMI port. That’s unfortunate considering the RAW video output, as micro HDMI cables (and ports) tend to be flimsy and complicated.

In terms of connectivity, you can turn off the camera via USB-C via the powering feature. It also offers Bluetooth 5 and 5GHz Wifi, and you can use it directly as a PC or Mac webcam via USB-C using industry-standard UVC and UAC audio and video drivers. integrated in Windows and MacOS.

Efficiency

As I saw in San Diego while shooting sports, the R6 II is fast. It can shoot continuously at 12fps with the mechanical shutter, slightly faster than the A7 IV. Switching to electronic mode, however, brings that speed up to an insane 40fps, making it the sportiest full-frame camera in this price class to date.

However, using electronic mode means you’ll take fewer photos (it also affects quality, but will affect more of that soon). You can get about 75 frames of compressed RAW/JPEG before the buffer is full, and less with uncompressed RAW. In contrast, in mechanical shutter mode, you can shoot about 1,000 frames of compressed RAW/JPEG before stopping, or about 140 uncompressed RAW images.

Speaking of buffers, one cool new feature is the Pro Capture mode. If you enable that setting and press the shutter button halfway, it will continuously record and store a few seconds’ worth of photos in the buffer. Then, when you fully press the shutter button, you’ll capture a few seconds of the action happening right before you do so. The idea, of course, is that if you’re not fast enough, you’ll still get shot.

The rolling shutter is well controlled, about half that of the original R6 and significantly less than the A7 IV, as you can see in the tests done by Undo Gerald. I hesitate to use it for fast-moving sports at full-frame, but it’s very small in cropped 1.6x.

Dual Pixel autofocus on the R6 II is also faster and more reliable than on the R6. Using it in single point mode without face/eye detection, it was able to keep up with a continuous shooting rate of 40fps, only missing an odd shot. In 12fps mechanical shutter mode, I rarely lost focus. In this respect, it is almost on par with the EOS R3, which uses a stacked sensor.

There are 4,897 focus detection positions for photos and 4,067 positions for video, with up to 100 percent coverage depending on the lens. That means you can track your subject even at the edge of the frame. Selecting an object is relatively easy using the multi-controller joystick or the touchscreen.

In addition to faces and eyes, the R6 II can detect human bodies, plus animals and vehicles, including motorcycles, cars, trains, and horses. It also comes with a new auto-select mode that allows the AI ​​to choose the type of object. It can also track user-selected topics that aren’t in those categories.

Although it can sometimes be confused by the background, the R6 II is very good at locking in faces and human eyes. It’s a bit less reliable for animals and other subjects. Tracking fast-moving subjects worked well, although I had to drill down into the settings to increase the speed for faster motion. Touch-to-tracking works well if the subject is well-defined, but isn’t as reliable as face tracking.

All in all, the autofocus is excellent and second only to the Sony. As mentioned, I take thousands of photos a day at Canon shoots (on the prototype camera) and most of them are in focus without me having to do much editing.

Image quality

The new 24-megapixel sensor (with neither backside illumination nor stacking) is the biggest improvement in this camera, delivering improved image quality, better low-light sensitivity, and more. Of course, images are sharper, but Canon has also enhanced the dynamic range, allowing for improved image quality.

JPEG has a good level of detail without over-sharpening. Color accuracy is good and skin tones are more pleasing than other cameras I’ve tested recently. If you want a bit of a boost but don’t shoot RAW, you can also shoot with the 10-bit HEIF (high efficiency image file) format, which offers a wider color gamut and less chance of banding. .

With an ISO range of 100-102400 (expanded from 50 to 204800), the R6 II is actually better than the original R6 in low light, albeit with a higher resolution. I had no qualms about shooting at ISO 12800 using some mild noise reduction, and even images at ISO 25,600 were usable if I exposed them correctly. However, anything above has low usability.

RAW photos retain more detail, especially in the shadows. That makes the image easier to edit if you’re underexposed. It may have slightly less dynamic range than a full-frame Sony or Nikon camera, but it’s still very good. Note, however, that dynamic range is reduced in electronic shutter mode as the R6 II switches from 14-bit to 12-bit shooting – so the extra speed will be slightly reduced in dynamic range.