Canon 6D Mark II Review

Canon 6D Mark II Review: An Affordable full-format DSLR

The EOS 6D was Canon‘s first full-format DSLR more than five years ago, costing less than 2,000 dollars. With the Canon 6D Mark II, the strongly improved successor model is now available, which, however – at least according to UVP – does not undercut the 2,000 dollar “sound barrier”.

For this, there is a new, higher-resolution image sensor with fast contrast autofocus, a rotatable and swiveling screen and a much more powerful autofocus with 45 instead of a meager eleven measuring points.

Canon 6D Mark II Pros And Cons

Pros

• Handy, splash-proof housing
• Integrated GPS, WLAN, Bluetooth, and NFC
• Large scope of equipment for beginners and photo enthusiasts
• Very good image quality up to ISO 3,200

Cons

• Housing is made of plastic only
• No integrated flash
• No focus peaking function
• Video recording only in Full-HD and not in 4K

Ergonomics and Workmanship

Even though the body of the Canon 6D Mark II is made of plastic, at 760 grams it is not a lightweight. The case is cleanly finished and feels quite robust. Even when you grab it firmly, there is no yielding, creaking noises are also not to be heard.

The robustness is underlined by the splash-water protection and dust protection. The camera is quite thick and has a pronounced handle with an indentation for the middle finger so that the DSLR can be held securely.

A thumb recess on the back and the rubber leathers contribute their part to the grip. Both the shutter release button and the control knobs have rather spongy pressure points, but the two pressure points of the shutter release can be easily distinguished and thus the autofocus and the shutter release can be dosed. But also a corresponding AF-On button is not missing if you want to decouple the autofocus from the shutter release button.

The memory card compartment is easily accessible from the side of the handle, but only swallows an SD card and is compatible with SDHC and SDXC. UHS I is supported, but the faster UHS-II is not.

The maximum memory speed in the test was a very good value of 77 megabytes per second (more on this in the Equipment And Features section). The lithium-ion battery sits in the handle and is removed on the underside, with the flap leaving ample space for the tripod thread located in the optical axis.

With 14 Wh, the LP-E6N offers a lavish capacity, making a total of 1,200 recordings possible according to the CIPA standard.

The lack of an internal flash, which would normally have to be fired every second shot, contributes to this. The 6D Mark II also benefits from the power-saving operation of the single-lens reflex viewfinder.

There is also an optional battery handle that further increases endurance and improves ergonomics for portrait shooting. After all, there are four interfaces, all of which are located on the left side of the case: In addition to a remote trigger, an external microphone, a mini HDMI cable, and a mini USB cable can be connected.

The 6D Mark II does not offer a USB charging function, the battery can only be charged in the supplied charging cradle outside the camera.

With a magnification of 0.71x, the reflex viewfinder shows a pleasantly large viewfinder image, but only 98% of the image to be captured. The recording data displayed below the viewfinder image is easy to read. If you wear glasses, however, you can’t get close enough to the viewfinder, so that the corners are somewhat shaded.

Those who can, should help themselves with the diopter correction of the viewfinder. The 7.7-centimeter screen has a resolution of 1.04 million pixels.

In addition, the 3:2 aspect ratio ensures optimum use of space in live image operation. A new feature is the ability to swivel the screen sideways and rotate it 270 degrees, allowing shots to be taken from all possible angles.

Thanks to the Live View autofocus, which is amazingly fast for a DSLR, you can work well with it as long as the objectives of the scene do not move. Only the maximum brightness of only 535 cd/m² leaves something to be desired, which is just enough for a reasonable readability in direct sunlight. We have already seen much brighter displays!

After all, it’s a touch screen, which not only allows you to place the autofocus point, but also to operate the camera including the menus, if you like.

Pure key operation is still possible, for which the Canon 6D Mark II offers more than ample direct selection keys for setting the relevant recording parameters. Even a classic LC display is not missing.

It is located on the top and displays the recording parameters. In order to be able to read it better in the dark, it can be illuminated in contrast to the keys.

The menus are divided into five main groups with numbered indexes, which allows quick browsing. A “Favorites” menu facilitates access to frequently used settings.

The custom menu, on the other hand, where, among other things, the key assignments and important autofocus settings can be found, is somewhat confusing with its columns of numbers.

A shooting quick menu is not missing, in which important parameters can be set for which there are no one-touch keys. In addition, some buttons can be individualized, albeit a bit cumbersome, two dials are available and the program dial provides access to previously saved preferred recording settings. The Canon 6D Mark II can, therefore, be seen overall with a few minor compromises in terms of operation.

Equipment And Features

Even if a full-format DSLR is not exactly cheap to buy, the EOS 6D Mark II can be described as one of the cheaper full-format DSLRs as a starter camera. The range of functions also reflects this as the second target group alongside photo enthusiasts.

For example, there is a fully automatic mode, some important scene mode programs for direct selection and a creative automatic mode, which, for example, allows the depth of field to be influenced without having to deal with the aperture of the lens. In the creative programs, however, you can influence the aperture and exposure time as well as other shooting parameters in a more targeted way.

While a panorama function is missing, there are some useful continuous shooting functions. HDRs, for example, the Canon 6D Mark II automatically captures images on demand and calculates the differently exposed images directly in the camera for better details in lights and shadows.

You can manually use the bracketing function to take two, three, five, or seven images with up to three EV exposure differences (slightly less for seven images). The images can be processed to an HDR on a PC, especially as the exposure correction works independently. Furthermore, the EOS offers an interval shooting function with up to 99 photos or in an unlimited mode.

If desired, Canon can combine the interval shots into a time-lapse film – this is also the only way to create a 4K video. The video recording function works at maximum in the Full-HD resolution, which is a bit low for a modern camera, but with at least 60 images per second.

The up to 30 minutes long videos are recorded in MP4 format with H.264 compression. The stereo sound can be recorded either via the integrated or an externally connected microphone.

Exposure parameters can be influenced manually in the same way as for photos. Thanks to the dual-pixel technology, the tracking autofocus works surprisingly well, but it’s best to use an STM lens with a focus motor designed for it.

Unfortunately, the Canon 6D Mark II lacks a focus-peaking function, which makes manual focusing during filming extremely difficult. Thanks to the touch screen and the good dual-pixel autofocus, however, automatic focus shifts from one subject detail to another can be achieved.

 

Autofocus In The Canon 6D Mark II

Regarding autofocus: The EOS 6D Mark II uses a much more powerful autofocus module than its predecessor. 45 measuring points are now available, all of which are phase sensors.

The central works at up to F2.8 for a higher precision, the central points also allow a collaboration with an F8 initial light intensity, which results in the use of teleconverters faster than one can be fond of.

The Canon 6D Mark II can only be chalked up a little by the central, compressed position of the focus points. This prevents the autofocus from tracking targets to the edge of the image.

But the 6D II isn’t necessarily a sports device either, the standard picture performance, for example, is somewhat behind the specifications in the data sheet. So we got a maximum of 6.4 instead of 6.5 continuous shots per second and in JPEG the camera became slower, even if only minimal, after 77 instead of 150 shots.

With small irregular pauses, the total number of continuous shots per second is six until the memory card is full. In Raw it was over after 19 instead of 21 pictures, then it goes on with an average of 2.3 serial pictures per second much more comfortably.

You can’t blame the used memory card, because it was the fastest SDHC card Sony SF-G32, which is supposed to reach 299 MB/s write speed in UHS-II mode. However, the Canon only supports UHS I, but achieves an impressive 77 MB/s write speed and makes use of the standard to a good 3/4.

The autofocus focuses from infinity to two meters within 0.25 seconds, including the 0.06-second shutter release delay, which is therefore triggered within a good 0.3 seconds. For a DSLR, this is pretty fast (and almost twice as fast as the predecessor model), but makes some mirrorless system cameras smile only tired, after all, they are sometimes twice as fast.

The autofocus of a (good) DSLR like that of the Canon 6D Mark II has its strengths rather in the pursuit of motifs, even if this last bastion meanwhile wobbles quite a bit. On the other hand, the 6D II cleans up a rather bad reputation of DSLRs in another area: The excruciatingly slow autofocus in Live View mode.

Instead of taking one or more seconds to focus – the predecessor model needed two to 2.5 seconds – the Canon 6D Mark II now does this in just over 0.3 seconds, including the approximately 0.07 seconds long shutter release delay, which results in just under 0.4 seconds, well below the half-second mark. In addition, the Live View is triggered without an annoying mirror strike, which makes the triggering somewhat quieter. Compared to a non-reflecting system camera, however, the Canon makes a lot of noise both with and without Live-View.

 

Image Quality Of The Canon 6D Mark II

We got to the bottom of the Canon EOS 6D Mark II image quality in practice using the EF 24-105 mm 3.5-5.6 IS STM set lens during two days. As usual, we also have utilized the test software to evaluate objectively the performance of the camera.

At all focal lengths, the lens shows only a small amount of edge darkening, which in addition only rises gently and is therefore hardly noticeable; the color fringes in the form of chromatic aberrations are also minimal. The distortion looks different. It is clearly barrel-shaped at a wide-angle of three percent and is highly visible. When zooming, the distortion reverses into a visible cushion shape.

According to the amount, it only reaches 1.5 percent, but the cushion shape is more unnatural to the human eye than the barrel shape, which subjectively makes it more noticeable.

With a resolution of up to 63 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm), the lens and thus also the EOS 6D Mark II achieves a very high resolution.

However, this only occurs in the wide-angle at the center of the image at F4. But even with an open aperture of F3.5, it is just under 60 lp/mm. The resolution decreases slowly during dimming, but only falls below the good value of 50 lp/mm beyond F16. With a medium focal length, you have to dim down slightly from F5 to F5.6 to reach over 50 lp/mm. With F8 and F11, the maximum is set at almost 55 lp/mm before the resolution drops again due to diffraction.

It looks very similar at the tele-end. From F5.6 to F8 the value of 50 lp/mm is exceeded, the maximum is at F11 with 53 lp/mm. At the edge of the picture it looks much worse. In wide-angle, less than 40 lp/mm is achieved with the aperture open, and you have to diagnose more than F5.6 to exceed 40 lp/mm.

At medium and long focal lengths, on the other hand, the 40 lp/mm can already be achieved with an open aperture. With F11 and F16, the edge resolution at all focal lengths even scratches the mark of 50 lp/mm, but does not quite reach it.

Thus, especially in the wide-angle there is a quite strong edge drop of the resolution, as long as one doesn’t dim properly. With a better lens, the Canon EOS 6D Mark II can easily reach 70 lp/mm, as our test of the Canon EF 16-35 mm 2.8L III USM shows.

The good resolution for such a 26-megapixel sensor is no accident, as the 6D Mark II sharpens like any other Canon, resulting in a sharpness artifact rate of about 15 percent. This provides crisp JPEGs, but also visible sharpness artifacts.

The signal-to-noise ratio of the Canon 6D Mark II reaches a very good value of 45 dB at ISO 50 and remains in the good range of over 40 dB up to ISO 1,600. The value drops quickly above this, however, and at ISO 12.800 the critical value of 35 dB is already just undershot.

Beyond this mark, brightness noise becomes clearly visible but remains fine-grained. Color noise, on the other hand, plays no role even at the highest sensitivity of ISO 102.400. At ISO 50 and 100, the Canon 6D Mark II achieves a very high texture sharpness, which once again illustrates the powerful sharpening.

Up to ISO 1.600, however, the value remains within a very good range, i.e. practically all details of the subject are reproduced without loss.

At ISO 3.200, the loss of detail is minimal and is reflected more in the measurement than in the visibility. However, from ISO 1.600 the texture sharpness decreases linearly with the ISO value, at ISO 6.400 there are only just enough details left. The images, on the other hand, appear much softer, the fine details are missing.

The input dynamics have improved the most compared to the predecessor model. In the range from ISO 100 to 3,200, eleven f-stops are achieved. The maximum is ISO 800, which indicates that at this sensitivity the noise in the shadow areas is significantly more eliminated, making the depths darker and the dynamics seem to be better.

Only at ISO 40,000 does the dynamic range drop below nine f-stops. The strong division of the tonal value curve was to be expected and underlines the crisp coordination of the JPEG files for beautiful, immediately usable photos with crisp, high-contrast details.

Up to ISO 800, the Canon also achieves an almost perfect output tonal range of almost 256 of the 256 possible brightness levels. Up to ISO 3.200, the output tonal range drops only slightly to a still good value of 224 steps.

From here on, however, every ISO level goes rapidly downhill. At ISO 12.800 there are less than 160 steps, which is still an acceptable value.

The actual color depth is also very high. Up to ISO 1.600, there are more than eight million colors, even at ISO 12.800 far more than two million color nuances are differentiated. The overall color fidelity is very good, there are on average only minor color deviations. They are somewhat stronger in the slightly desaturated yellow, which tends slightly towards green, and in the strongly saturated red tones.

In addition, the magenta tends towards pink. All in all, the 6D Mark II reproduces pleasing colors with a strong red.

Conclusions: Is The Canon 6D Mark II Worth It?

The Canon 6D Mark II is a very well-balanced digital SLR camera with a good price-performance ratio, if the red pencil was too much noticed in the predecessor model.

Although the housing is made of plastic, it is robust and ergonomic.

The autofocus offers adequate performance and follows moving objects very well, even if only in the middle image area, with its many measuring points.

Thanks to the now very fast dual-pixel CMOS AF and the movable touch screen, you can also work very well in Live View with the Canon, which significantly increases flexibility.

Speaking of flexibility: GPS, NFC, WLAN, and Bluetooth leave nothing to be desired. The 6D Mark II has to put a little bit back in the video area, while the 4K resolution is already available in the entry-level area in the (mirrorless) competition, you have to be content with full HD in the over 2,000 dollars expensive Canon 6D Mark II; but with a well functioning autofocus.

The continuous shooting speed does not set a record but is solid and sufficient for many applications. The Canon EOS 6D Mark II doesn’t give itself away in terms of image quality. It has a very high resolution and offers a very good image quality up to ISO 3.200, but can also be used with slight compromises or a careful raw data development.