Katelyn James answers the most common questions she gets about the Canon R6. She's done a ton of videos on the R6, but there are still more questions here that get answered. Like, are low megapixels an issue with the R6? This is the video to watch.
What's Confusing About the EOS R6?
Katelyn covers the questions that people are asking about the R6. I've had an R6 for a while now, and the images aren't particularly noisy for me, so I was personally interested to see what she said about the question. Why are my R6 pictures so noisy? For me, the answer would be to expose properly rather than to shoot underexposed and raise the levels in post-processing, but she answers this quite well, and you can definitely see why she has such a good following online. I think looking at the way the R6 differs against say the Canon 5D Mark IV is good. That was a staple workhorse for my business for years, and I battered the heck out of that camera at weddings. The change to the R6 was a big deal for me, as I had only just started to buy RF lenses for the EOS R I had as a backup camera.
Katelyn talks about the focus recompose method and the way focus has changed with mirrorless. The change from the Canon 5D Mark IV and what she misses about that camera. This is a good video that answers a lot of questions people have about the Canon R6 and will help them decide whether it's a good fit for them, either as an upgrade to the 5D Mark IV or as a new purchase.
No, in spite of all apologists, the 20 MP sensor is absolutely inadequate, at least if you are a wildlife, or especially a bird photographer taking pictures of small subjects at a significant distance. It might be wonderful for weddings, but it is a poor choice for wildlife.
Last year I finally decided to go mirrorless, and “upgrade” from my beloved 7D MK II to a new Canon camera. I agonized whether to stick with APSC and go with the R7, or spend substantially more with the R5. But I made the mistake of listening to advice similar to the bad advice in this video.
And I understand exposure settings and ISO, by the way. I typically shoot wildlife and birds with a Canon 200-400 mm extender lens. I generally shoot at f/4 or f/5.6, and since I am mostly shooting hand held or with a monopod, and the birds are often in flight, I need to set the exposure to 1/1250 sec. Mostly I depend on Auto ISO to set the ISO value.
Noise is a constant issue with the R6. Even when the extender was not engaged, and especially in low light, the noise was excessive. I have taken some pretty good photos with this camera, but they all required heavy use of post processing noise reduction. And at the end, the quality of the image is affected.
I sold my new R6, and replaced it with an R5 and an R7. Both are FAR superior cameras to the R6. I am extremely happy with both.
One final point. Canon has implicitly admitted the deficiency with the release of the R6 MK II. But once again, the release is not designed to deliver the performance Canon camera users expect. The release is designed to give Canon something with an intermediate price point between the R5 and R7.
Don’t fall for this marketing driven strategy!
If people need higher res files for wildlife, landscape (or whatever) that's fine but there's no right or wrong answer when it comes to what is enough MP for any individual. Photographers are not all the same. I am perfectly fine with 24MP from my camera and I don't want a higher MP sensor with larger file sizes or extra detail. For my photography it serves no purpose.
--- "No, in spite of all apologists, the 20 MP sensor is absolutely inadequate,"
--- "But I made the mistake of listening to advice similar to the bad advice in this video."
You have to consider the source. In this case, a wedding photographer answering questions for her wedding audience. For what they do, it's more than sufficient, so it's not bad advice.
If you fell for the 20 mp for wildlife, that's on you. I'm not a wildlife photographer and even I know you may want to highly consider a higher mp camera. C'mon, man.
Noise wise, it's fine. It's no different than most modern cameras out there. I downloaded a couple of sample R6 raws with ISO 4000 and 5000. Below are no edits and no nr. I don't see anything that would bother me. If you're a pixelpeeper and that allergic to noise grain and love to get all melodramatic over it, any of the denoise apps/plugins out there would easily, easily, easily clear these up.
As a wedding photographer you really don't go from 5dmk4 to mirrorless 6D/6D mk2 . I love my R6, but if I was shooting weddings I would definitely go R5. Cmon guys... Home much are you charging your clients to do that. The ISO thing? 🤣 Well R5 is dealing with high ISO as good as is R6 with double the resolution. And when running Topaz labs DeNoise AI, you'll never really worry about noise even when on 5dmk4.
For me, my 5d4's were on their last legs so I though I'll try the R6 first and then buy an R5 if I like it. R5 is on the way ;)
Hi Peter, Black Z Eddie and Sam Sims,
All I can say is that the R5 is by far the most wonderful camera I have ever owned. As Zdenek pointed out, R5 high ISO performance is terrific, and having double the resolution means I have the ability to crop the heck out of the image with outstanding results.
And for everyone who loves their R6, I wish them joy!
As Black Eddie Z pointed out (and by the way, I love your work!) picking the wrong camera for my needs was definitely on me! The lesson (for me) is to not take somebody else's opinion - in spite of their credentials - as definitive. And try to have enough technical expertise to make better decisions going forward. I kick myself for cheaping out, and not spending the extra 1000 bucks on the R5 the first time around.
By the way, Sam Sims makes a good point regarding the benefit of the smaller 20 MB files taking up a lot less space.
That's true, but by the time I hit one of my R6 images with Topaz Denoise (and often Topaz Sharpen) and save it as a .tif file, even if it's heavily cropped it's at least a 34 MB file or larger, (sometimes much larger). And sure, I could compress the image, but I usually don't. Having worked so hard on the post processing makes me inclined to keep it around just in case I want to print it.
Finally, sorry if my original post seemed overwrought. I just wish Canon influencers would talk more about the limitations and negatives of the equipment as well as the positives. I have been a Canon supporter since the 1970s, and continue to love my gear! But in my humble opinion, with all due respect, I think the initial version of the R6 would have been a better product with a somewhat larger sensor. If it had been available at the time, I would have been much happier with an R6 MK II. But not distantly as happy as I am with my R5! :-)
And I very much appreciate the comments. I depend on learning from the professionals on fstoppers who know more than I do.
Hey Robert thats what this community of likeminded professionals is all about right? Helping each other. I can't wait to get my R5. The R6 is a great camera but like Black Z Eddie . Said it doesn't really suffer from high ISO noise. Thinking back I should have really got my 5d4's services and shutter changed but tried the R6 on the recommendation of a friend and Wex (Like B&H in the UK). not disappointed completely but just now aware of the limitations
The R6 handles high ISO really well, and is amazing in lowlight. I’d definitely say it’s better than both the 5DMkIV & the 7DMkII on those two points.
If you’re getting grainy pix it’s cos you’re doing it wrong, and one of the most common ways of getting it wrong is unnecessarily high ISO settings and underexposing with shutter speed. Both of which are a result of coming to the R6 from a DSLR (like me). On the first point, learn to trust the camera. With IBIS and lens stabilisation you can realistically shoot at really low shutter speeds, so you don’t need as high an ISO setting as you think you do. On the second point, if you’re planning to underexpose and bring it up in post, don’t underexpose with your shutter speed or aperture like you did on a DSLR. Do it with the ISO. Unlike the sensor in the 1DxMkIII that it’s based on, the R6 sensor is ISO invariant, so take advantage of that. So if perfect exposure means shooting at 1/250, f/4, ISO4000 and you wanna underexpose, don’t shoot at 1/350 or f/7.1; do it at ISO2000. Cos the other way you’ll later be raising exposure on an already high ISO image, and that’s not necessary.
As for Megapixels, I think a few more wouldn’t have hurt, but I won’t buy an R5 just for that. I shoot mostly travel, documentary, and some photojourno, and this file size is fine, even with some cropping.