Canon EOS 6D 20.1 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD (Body Only)

Me encanta, el producto llegó en buenas condiciones aunque al principio dudé un poco ya que la caja estaba abierta porque venía con un lente como kit y yo solo compré el cuerpo según me comentó el vendedor; hasta ahora todo en orden.

Canon 6d Review

I’ve now been using my 6d for a bit over a week and feel that I’ve handled it enough to write a comprehensive review. First, let me tell you that I upgraded from a Rebel T2i, which I absolutely loved. I’m by no means a pro, and I don’t typically get paid for my work; but I would classify myself as a photo enthusiast. I travel a lot and size and weight were factors in my decision to go with the 6d. I also like to shoot with available light, which is why I wanted to go full frame for the high ISO performance. For some reason it says I purchased the body only, but I actually bought the kit.

Let me address some of the “cons” that people are complaining about right out of the gate. I’m going to assume that most people considering the 6d are like me – looking to upgrade from a nice point and shoot style camera or a Rebel series or other APS-C style DSLR. Nearly everything that people are stating are “cons” I never had on my Rebel in the first place, so I don’t miss these features. The AF system has gotten a lot of attention, but on my Rebel, I used the center point 90% of the time for focusing. The center point on the 6d is just amazing. It focuses in an almost completely dark room. Certainly it will be able to focus for any situation when you are going to shoot hand held. I will take the simplified control of 11 AF points and an absolutely fantastic center focus point over 61 points (caveat: I don’t shoot sports or other fast moving objects so I wouldn’t really benefit from the addition points for tracking a moving subject).

I rarely, if ever, shoot video so not having a headphone jack doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Also, not having a built in flash is no big deal to me either. I’m going to assume that people looking at this price range for a camera have an external flash and understand the limitations of a built in flash. I never used the one on my Rebel anyway. Finally, not having two SD card slots doesn’t seem like a big loss to me. While I think the redundancy of two slots might be nice, I’ve never had an SD card fail on me and perpetually back up my images anyway.

24-105mm f/4 Kit Lens:
Honestly this was probably what was holding me back the most about going full frame. I previously have been using the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and I have to say that better than 90% of my pictures taken with my T2i were shot using this lens. While the 17-55 doesn’t have a red ring or L in its name, it defiantly can run with the L glass. I worried that going from a relatively fast 2.8 (EF-S lenses do not fit on the 6d) to an f/4 would be limiting, but I also didn’t want to give up IS and the 24-70mm was out of my price range anyway. Let me say that given the higher ISO performance, I don’t really miss the stop I lost going to an f/4 lens. I actually like having a bit more reach with the 24-105. I would defiantly have kept my 17-55 f/2.8 if I could have, but I also don’t feel limited by the 24-105 f/4. In the future I plan to get the 16-35 f/2.8 for use alongside the 25-105 f/4. So in summary, if you are like me and hesitating about giving up your 17-55mm f/2.8 for the 24-105 f/4, don’t worry – the kit lens is fantastic and you won’t regret going full frame for a second.

ISO Performance:
Let me sum it up in one word: amazing. I hate noisy pictures and I’d hesitate to shoot much above ISO 400 with my T2i. I have no problem shooting at 3200-6400 with the 6d. I took some shots basically in the dark at 25,600 and they were defiantly usable. Low light performance is just amazing. I can’t comment on how it compares to other full frame cameras, but I do know there is just no comparison between APS-C sensors and this one.

Auto ISO on this camera is awesome. I never used Auto ISO on my T2i (as I said above I hate noisy images and didn’t like the camera constantly trying to push up the ISO). The Auto ISO on this camera lets you set a minimum shutter speed (great for people, like myself, who rarely use a tripod). It brings the shutter down to (near) the minimum, and then starts to the boost the ISO. Additionally (like most SLR’s) you can set the maximum and minimum Auto ISO speeds.

Autofocus:
I touched on this above, but for its limitations, I actually like the AF system. I shoot mostly still subjects in available light and absolutely love the center AF point and its ability to focus in near dark conditions. AF is fast and of the few hundred pictures I’ve taken so far, hasn’t missed yet. I like the simplicity of the 11-point AF system. I find the 61-point system hard to navigate. Coming from a Rebel, the AF system is very similar so there was really no learning curve when going to the 6d.

Design & Button Layout:
The 6d is surprisingly small and light. It’s honestly not much bigger than my T2i, and only slightly heavier. It defiantly doesn’t feel cheap though. It feels rugged, well built, and substantial in your hand. It doesn’t have the plastic feel that the Rebels do. It feels like a pro-level camera. Coming from a Rebel, I felt pretty at home with the button layout. A few things are in different places (e.g. the mode dial is on the other side to make room for the top LCD screen) but I was adjusted within a day or so. The mode dial lock is a cool little feature, but I can’t say I ever had an issue with the mode dial moving itself on my Rebel.

The 8-way rocker is a bit annoying, but still a step above the four way buttons on the Rebel series. It’s also nice to have the wheel on the back to adjust aperture (or shutter speed) in Manual mode, instead of having to press and hold a button and use the main dial on the T2i. The menu system feels well laid out and everything is pretty easy to find. Also having two custom spots on the mode dial is a nice addition (people seems to be complaining there are only 2 instead of 3, but let me say that 2 is much better than the zero I had before!). You can use the custom spots for pretty much anything (I have my set up for exposure bracketing and portraits). The ISO button location also takes a bit of getting used to when moving from a Rebel to the 6d, but the reassessed button and raised dot make it relatively easy to adjust quickly. Also you can customize a lot of the button assignments in the custom functions menu.

Battery life seems to be pretty good so far. As expected, using GPS and WiFi considerably shorten the life, but it’s certainly still acceptable. A note about aftermarket batteries: they work, but the camera doesn’t play nice with them. If you put in an aftermarket battery the camera warns you that it isn’t a Canon battery and asks if you want to continue. It also doesn’t know how much battery life is remaining. I’m hoping the aftermarket battery manufacturers will update their batteries soon (Wassabi indicated within a month or two they would be releasing an update).

WiFi & GPS:
I bought this camera not really thinking I would use either of these features very often, but let me say they are welcome additions. The WiFi is pretty simple to set up (if you’ve ever set up a router or even configured your smart phone to connect to WiFi then you shouldn’t have any issues). In less than 20 minutes I tried out connecting to an iPad, Android phone, laptop, and even a uploading directly to Facebook without any issues at all (note that you have to connect to your laptop first to set up Facebook and you have to register with Canon). Transferring images wirelessly from the 6d to a laptop is surprisingly fast and easy. Also, viewing images on an iPad wirelessly is easy (**01/07/2013: Canon confirmed to me that no dedicated iPad app is being developed and you must use the iPhone app). I don’t have much to say about GPS, other than it works. I stepped outside and it acquired a satellite signal pretty fast. You can view the geotagged information either in the provided Canon Maps application or in Adobe Lightroom. I think this will be really great when I am traveling. Note that the GPS stays on even when the camera is off (WiFi does not, however). You can turn off (or at least turn down the frequency) of the “bread crumb” feature (which tracks your location at set intervals to plot your path) to save some battery life.

**01/06/2013: The 6d only supports 2.4 GHz wireless bands, so if you are running a 5 GHz band router you won’t be able to connect. Note most routers operating in the 5 GHz band also support 2.4 GHz so it may just be a matter of changing some setting on your router.

Advanced Shooting Modes:
HDR, white balance and exposure bracketing, and multiple exposure modes are all really great features. I love to shoot HDR and the camera does a pretty decent job of aligning and merging the images when shooting hand held. I do feel limited in that you can only take three exposures in HDR mode. I also find it a pain to have to turn off RAW mode in order to turn on HDR. I actually prefer the exposure bracketing. You can bracket up to seven shots in 1/3 EV steps (note that if you want to bracket more than the default three shots you have to change a setting in the custom functions menu).

The camera contains a lot of features for JPEG shooters (since I shoot mostly RAW I don’t use these features often, but they seem nice to have for people who don’t use post processing software). The camera will now do lens profile corrections (fixing distortion, brightness, vignette, etc.) for the lens that is attached. I always apply this to my photos using Lightroom and it’s nice to have in-camera.

Summary:
In sum, the 6d is a fantastic camera. I don’t at all feel hampered by the so called “limitations” pointed out in some of the reviews (lack of pop of flash, only 11 AF points, a single SD card slot, etc.). If you are upgrading from a Rebel you will love the improved center AF point, high ISO performance, speed, build quality, advanced shooting modes, and WiFi and GPS built in. I don’t feel the need to compare this camera to Nikon’s or Canon’s other offering, because honestly this is a fantastic camera in its own right. I was already invested with several lenses in the Canon system, so Nikon was never really a consideration for me. The choice was really between the 6d and the 5d M3 and given the relatively large cost difference the 6d was the clear choice. Also if your considering the 5d M2, I think the benefit of five plus years of development has greatly benefited the 6d, and therefore would highly recommend the 6d over the 5d M2 for the sensor and new Digic 5+ processor.

Pros:
+Awesome low light / high ISO performance
+Great center AF point for very low light focusing
+WiFi and GPS built in provide awesome flexibility in shooting, especially for travelers
+Relatively light and small (for a full frame) without sacrificing solid construction
+Very bright and clear viewfinder (especially when compared to the Rebels)
+Digic 5+ processor provides great JPEG improvements and fast enough shooting speed

Cons:
-Kit lens is only f/4, and the 24-70 f/2.8 is pricey!
-HDR mode is slightly cumbersome to use and disappointing with its three shot exposure limitation
-Button layout takes a bit to adjust to

Please feel free to sound off in the comments with questions!

So far, so good. Bought this body mainly to fit with my 150mm telescope for the solar eclipse in August; the full frame sensor allows imaging the entire sun whereas APS/C sensor is too small and cuts it off. Test pictures and video taken so far have been good. Didn’t buy the lens with it so can’t comment on general photo quality & features just yet. When the budget allows, am looking to match the body with the USM f/4 24-70mm zoom.

Sin duda alguna es un buen equipo. El pedido tardó en llegar 3 semanas, así que…si el tiempo de espera no es problema, vale pena. El producto llegó en excelentes condiciones, muy bien protegida la cámara, pero en verdad que muy bien protegida, quede sorprendido. La caja bien cerrada, tan bien cerrada y protegida que me tardé en poder sacar la cámara. El envío se hizo por ESTAFETA y tienen que estar al pendiente porque su método de entrega es muy lento y no se actualiza tan seguido, de hecho yo tuve que ir al centro de distribución por la cámara. Pero de ahí en fuera la cámara excelente, precio muy bueno y protección del equipo nivel experto en verdad, ahí todo excelente. Si recomiendo este comprador sin duda alguna!