Game changer for Canon - and you
I have been photographing weddings for over 15 years now. I shot my first weddings with an EOS 40D. Then I upgraded to a 5D Mark II, and then a 5D Mark III.Over the years, a number of my peers switched to mirrorless systems, opting for Olympus, or more recently Sony. I resisted. Partially it was because my then current cameras were working fine, partially because of the lessened durability of mirrorless bodies (regarding resistance to the elements, etc.), and partially because I didn't want to dump my investment in Canon glass and switch to a different system.It's 100% fair to say that Canon really dragged their feet when it came to taking the mirrorless camera format seriously. But then they released the R series, and while promising cameras, they weren't quite there yet, in my opinion, for the demands of wedding photography.That all changed with the release of the R5/R6. I don't feel like I'm exaggerating when I say that Canon produced class-leading cameras with this line. Is/was the reigning mirrorless champ, Sony, still better at a few things? Sure, but the R5/R6 are also objectively better than any Sony camera in some other areas.Suddenly Canon was in the game and looking to win it.I bought an R6 in February of 2022. I debated briefly between the R5 and R6, but ultimately 45mp is overkill for weddings and I wasn't keen on the more expensive memory card. While I initially had my concerns about "only" 20mp in the R6, in practical use, I haven't found it to be an issue.Shooting with the R6 was like a revelation after coming from the 5D Mark III. Don't get me wrong, I still absolutely love my 5Ds, but the R6 just steps out of your way while you're shooting. Want to compose in camera? No worries. You have, for all practical purposes, 100% coverage of the autofocus. Want to manually adjust all of your settings on the fly? No problem. With three customizable dials, you can put aperture, shutter speed and ISO at your fingertips. You can also enable real time exposure simulation, so you're spending less time chimping the back of your screen. Want to shoot in low light? We got you. I've gone as high as 12,800 ISO and gotten fully usable, deliverable images from the R6.Is the camera perfect? Nope. Not even close. Absolutely no camera will ever be perfect. For example, while the autofocus is great, I've found that it seems a tad less accurate with vertical shooting than horizontal when using some of my lenses (lenses that I had no problems getting sharp vertical shots on my 5D Mark III). It's pretty hungry for batteries (although you can disable a lot of unnecessary settings that like to chew up battery life). While weather "resistant" (whatever that means), it's not as weather protected as either of my 5Ds.Even so, for it's few shortcomings, I loved the R6 so much that I really didn't want to use my 5D Mark III as my second / backup camera anymore, and I purchased a second R6 in July of 2022.Now that the prices is dropping due to the release of the R6 Mark II, I think this camera is even more of a bargain. While some of the features of the Mark II sound nice, I feel like this original R6 will still be a powerhouse camera for any still photographer (videographer might want to consider the Mark II, however). And I don't see any reason why some of the new autofocus detection features of the Mark II couldn't be ported over to this camera with a firmware upgrade.Canon may have taken their sweet time getting seriously into the mirrorless market, but now that they are here, the market is theirs to dominate.
