6D- An amateur's review

[CarlTN]

Their are many differences between the 5dMKIII and the 6d its not just the AF. The build quality of the 6d is very good but not to the 5dMKIII level, the 5dMKIII has a shutter guarenteed for 150K shots as opposed to 100K so this camera even on those two criteria was built with pros in mind not amateurs which was the remit of the 6d.

The 6d has to give something up with such a big price difference and clearly it does so making comparisons is not really useful because their aimed at totally different users. I find the 6d a wonderful tool when traversing Dartmoor with a Lowpro rucksack full of gear and a tripod in hand that lighter weight than the 7d you really notice after a few hours and you really notice the iQ back home when editting shots.

Sounds to me like you don't have any trouble getting pro quality results from the 6D. Not saying the 6D was designed specifically for professionals, obviously...but frankly it just depends on what profession you're in. For all but sports and fashion photographers, the 6D works good to great. For wedding pros, it works great as a supplement to the 5D3. As the only DSLR at a wedding shoot, definitely not at a professional level. Thankfully I plan on never being a wedding pro!

 

[CarlTN]

An image to show what I meant by wider dynamic range. Using my old 550D, the whiter parts and yellow leaves would have been over exposed, but with 6D, I'm able to not just have it within range, but greater manipulation in CS6 too.

Nice image and processing!

 

[abcde12345]

High ISO image.

 

[abcde12345]

Finally it's through! 8) High ISO (I think its ISO6400) with hand held in pitch black situation. I believe that this is one of the greatest evidence that high ISO performance is important: definitely wouldn't be able to capture this without it! Being a tourist without a tripod or any space to place it, this would be a shame to not capture. I understand people would say that it's a compressed picture and noise blah blah blah, but this is just to show you guys what high ISO performance is like for 6D. In fact, you might say with the flexibility of high ISO, I am now more than willing to control my aperture too, which leads to better control over two segments in one go! ;D Definitely learning more stuff now!

 

[abcde12345]

An image to show what I meant by wider dynamic range. Using my old 550D, the whiter parts and yellow leaves would have been over exposed, but with 6D, I'm able to not just have it within range, but greater manipulation in CS6 too.

Nice image and processing!

Thank you! I guess this image would show somewhat of what I was talking about: detail retention and a certain sharpness that just can't be explained! (I hope ;D)

 

[Zlyden]

An image to show what I meant by wider dynamic range. Using my old 550D, the whiter parts and yellow leaves would have been over exposed, but with 6D, I'm able to not just have it within range, but greater manipulation in CS6 too.

Nice image and processing!

Thank you! I guess this image would show somewhat of what I was talking about: detail retention and a certain sharpness that just can't be explained! (I hope ;D)

Good image!

Now I do see 'halos' on contrast area borders.

Sorry, are you sure that these are not CA and JPEG artifacts? (Do you shoot in JPEG with high compression?)

 

[abcde12345]

Nope. Only RAW. That could be a raise too much of shadow though.

 

[Zlyden]

Nope. Only RAW. That could be a raise too much of shadow though.

Then: could it be some 'over-sharpening' in post-processing + JPEG compression you use when re-saving image for posting on forum?

I just tried to check my 6D images that may have areas prone to JPEG artifacts and halos and saw none...

Here is a sample of simple 'walk under the tree, point camera up and shoot' scene. It's out-of-camera JPEG, no extra processing at all. No halos (just unsharp corners of 17-40 at f/4).

Ooops! It looks like the forum engine efficiently re-compress the image and kills things "no one" needs (like ICC profiles). I think I'd bttere post is as a linked image:

 

[abcde12345]

I didn't actually raise sharpness, so it's interesting. I might have to check again what's going on. It might be due to the difference in converting RAW to JPEG though. I will have to research on this more...