Canon EOS 6D Mark II Talk [CR1]

[ahsanford]

I'm always in for surprises. But if I read the sound comments of our experts here in the forum, 1/3 to 1/2 a stop would be a huge step forward already, given the current tech. Sorry for comparing apples to oranges now: in comparison to an a7s we talk about 24 MP vs 12 MP, and a different sensor tech as well. Anyway, if a 24 MP 6DII would deliever an 1.5 stops improvement in RAW, this would be fantastic. 3200ish ISO 8000, 6400ish ISO 18000 and 12800ish ISO 31000. Bring it on, put the same sensor into the 5DIV and I am a happy camper...;-)

That's kind of the problem. On the stills front, the 6D -- even with it's nerfed AF -- ever so slightly upstaged the 5D3 in some areas. The argument for the 5D3 went from "Have the best non-gripped FF SLR on the planet for $3499" to "We're like a 6D, but with better AF and video for roughly twice the price" the moment the 6D's reviews got posted.

We all know the 5D3 is a better camera for many other reasons (some big, some small), but the sensor gobbled up everyone's attention and an argument could be made if you weren't shooting video and you weren't tracking a fast moving object, a 6D could absolutely net the same images as a 5D3.

I assure you, Canon will see to it that such blurring of the price points never happens again. I expect a clear differentiation between the 5D4 and 6D2 sensors, so that it's clear (a) which product is top dog and (b) why top dog costs a lot more.

Could you if imagine Canon asked $4k for a 5D4 and put the same sensor into a $2k 6D2? I just can't see it.

- A

 

[ashmadux]

Not keen on the swivel LCD as it could be a potential weak point structurally. Saying this, I don't know what the fault rate on current DSLRs with movable LCD screens are. However, every camera I've used has had a standard fixed LCD and there's never been an issue. Then again, I look after my camera and treat it like a newborn baby! 8)

Forget about fault rate - there is literally no complaint threads ever for swivel screens- because they are awesome. The 6d s basically a landscape camera already. The benefits of swivel screen are huge for anything you will shoot.

If they made this into a full frame equivalent of a 70d, that would be aces. I LOVE the sensor, though the images are softie. They just dont have much to do here to make this a solid, jack of all traders low end FF.

And we can say goodbye to the worst FF Af system in modern history...yuck.

 

[Sporgon]

I would strongly prefer that they keep the interchangeable screens because my 6D has the Eg-S now, much better.

I have the Eg-S arriving tomorrow and am a bit excited. How do you like it? Is it easy enough to swap out? I do 99% autofocus, however I liked the idea of being able to confirm with my eye. I shoot a lot of shots at f/1.4, f/2 and sometimes I think I'm in focus and don't find out until later when I'm reviewing in LR.

All my lenses are f/2.8 and faster except for two, and one them is the Tamron 150-600. Hopefully the viewfinder isn't too dark for my eyes with the new focus screen. Of course the Tamron gets used almost exclusively outdoors and in good light so...

It's dead easy to swap, though I wouldn't want to do it out in the field as it were.

I'm cautious on the interchangeable screen on the 6DII, because I'm pretty certain the 5DIV will revert back to having one, just as the 7DII has. Canon seems to have sorted the manufacturing cost of transmissive LCD and user changeable screen. Also in the face of advancing EVFs I'm sure Canon will want to make the OVF as attractive as possible. However this could mean that as the 'second tier' camera the upcoming 6DII will lose the interchaneable screen as the 70D did.

 

[siegsAR]

I had the 70D then I sold it to get a 6D. Did I miss the swivel screen? Not so much, only on few occasions when I haven't familiarized w/ the 6D yet. After that I kind of adjusted, sure it would be quicker sometimes but not a deal-breaker.

Swivel or not, I would be fine w/ what the 6D2's gonna bring. TBH, a near 70D focusing is what I would desire for it to have. An added stop of DR would be just gravy. No camera on the planet has that DR I wanted anyway. ;D

 

[davidhfe]

Well, current sensors have about 50% quantum efficiency and 3 electrons of read noise.

Imagine you could double the quantum efficiency to 100% (which is the limit), you would gain 1 stop. (1 stop = doubling of light collected).

Not to go too far OT, but I thought that quantum efficiency could exceed 100%. You just get more than one electron per photon. Wasn't that part of the whole grapheme image sensor concept that went around a few years ago?

Practically, yeah, we're unlikely to see a doubling of QE anytime soon but I don't think it's a physical limit.

 

[ahsanford]

I'm cautious on the interchangeable screen on the 6DII, because I'm pretty certain the 5DIV will revert back to having one, just as the 7DII has. Canon seems to have sorted the manufacturing cost of transmissive LCD and user changeable screen. Also in the face of advancing EVFs I'm sure Canon will want to make the OVF as attractive as possible. However this could mean that as the 'second tier' camera the upcoming 6DII will lose the interchaneable screen as the 70D did.

Yet another feature the 6D offered over the 5D3.

I agree with your assessment -- I see interchangeable screens being saved for the higher priced rigs. I would not expect this feature in the 6D2.

This will build the cumulative sell that the 5D4 is an all-around improvement over the 6D2.

- A

 

[pedro]

I'm always in for surprises. But if I read the sound comments of our experts here in the forum, 1/3 to 1/2 a stop would be a huge step forward already, given the current tech. Sorry for comparing apples to oranges now: in comparison to an a7s we talk about 24 MP vs 12 MP, and a different sensor tech as well. Anyway, if a 24 MP 6DII would deliever an 1.5 stops improvement in RAW, this would be fantastic. 3200ish ISO 8000, 6400ish ISO 18000 and 12800ish ISO 31000. Bring it on, put the same sensor into the 5DIV and I am a happy camper...;-)

That's kind of the problem. On the stills front, the 6D -- even with it's nerfed AF -- ever so slightly upstaged the 5D3 in some areas. The argument for the 5D3 went from "Have the best non-gripped FF SLR on the planet for $3499" to "We're like a 6D, but with better AF and video for roughly twice the price" the moment the 6D's reviews got posted.

We all know the 5D3 is a better camera for many other reasons (some big, some small), but the sensor gobbled up everyone's attention and an argument could be made if you weren't shooting video and you weren't tracking a fast moving object, a 6D could absolutely net the same images as a 5D3.

I assure you, Canon will see to it that such blurring of the price points never happens again. I expect a clear differentiation between the 5D4 and 6D2 sensors, so that it's clear (a) which product is top dog and (b) why top dog costs a lot more.

Could you if imagine Canon asked $4k for a 5D4 and put the same sensor into a $2k 6D2? I just can't see it.

- A

Thank you ahsanford. You are right. Then, what can we expect from a 5DIV high ISO/IQ? Wish it could stay at these 20 something MP I had on my 5D3. Linked with the improvement, it sure would be quite a step up. The 1DX is said to be at least a stop better in IQ than the 5D3, at its 18 MP including all the components which contribute to it. So, what is the probable improvement in high ISO/IQ of an 1DX II and what does that mean for a 5DIV at let's say 24 MP? Sure, one cannot say much at this stage...Will we see a similar sensor (techwise) as in the 5Ds/R?

 

[ahsanford]

Thank you ahsanford. You are right. Then, what can we expect from a 5DIV high ISO/IQ? Wish it could stay at these 20 something MP I had on my 5D3. Linked with the improvement, it sure would be quite a step up. The 1DX is said to be at least a stop better in IQ than the 5D3, at its 18 MP including all the components which contribute to it. So, what is the probable improvement in high ISO/IQ of an 1DX II and what does that mean for a 5DIV at let's say 24 MP? Sure, one cannot say much at this stage...Will we see a similar sensor (techwise) as in the 5Ds/R?

That's the $64,000 question. Will the 5D4 be built around improving the low light performance? Or will it focus on dynamic range improvements? We have no idea.

The only thing we know is that it won't be packing that 50 MP 5DS sensor. All conventional wisdom and virtually every rumor says that we're in the 24-30 MP neighborhood and naturally have a higher burst rate than the 5DS with such smaller files to handle. That's about all we know.

But most believe that we'll hear about the 1DX II (or whatever it's called) first, and that should help us get a read on what sort of flagship goodness be handed down (AF system? Metering system? Focusing screens? New viewfinder tech?) to the 5D4. Time will tell.

- A

 

[midluk]

Well, current sensors have about 50% quantum efficiency and 3 electrons of read noise.

Imagine you could double the quantum efficiency to 100% (which is the limit), you would gain 1 stop. (1 stop = doubling of light collected).

Not to go too far OT, but I thought that quantum efficiency could exceed 100%. You just get more than one electron per photon. Wasn't that part of the whole grapheme image sensor concept that went around a few years ago?

Depends on how you define QE. If it is the probability for an incident photon to be detected, then 100% is the upper limit.
Even when you apply some gain and get more than one electron per photon, you can only decrease the relative read noise. You will not decrease the Poisson noise coming from the actual fluctuation in the number of incident photons. If you have an average of 10000 incident photons per pixel, you will still have a fluctuation of sqrt(10000)=100 photons, no matter what you do to the sensor.

 

[StudentOfLight]

1.5 stops better high ISO? In RAW? No way!

In cooked JPEG - quite possible with additional processing power in easy scenes.

I'm always in for surprises. But if I read the sound comments of our experts here in the forum, 1/3 to 1/2 a stop would be a huge step forward already, given the current tech. Sorry for comparing apples to oranges now: in comparison to an a7s we talk about 24 MP vs 12 MP, and a different sensor tech as well. Anyway, if a 24 MP 6DII would deliever an 1.5 stops improvement in RAW, this would be fantastic. 3200ish ISO 8000, 6400ish ISO 18000 and 12800ish ISO 31000. Bring it on, put the same sensor into the 5DIV and I am a happy camper...;-)

Well, current sensors have about 50% quantum efficiency and 3 electrons of read noise.

Imagine you could double the quantum efficiency to 100% (which is the limit), you would gain 1 stop. (1 stop = doubling of light collected).

Then at these very low numbers we're at poisson noise and I don't have the numbers at hand but 3 electrons is not much. You need 100 electrons to get a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 with a perfect sensor. With 3 electrons of read noise that would be a signal-to-noise ratio of 100/13 = 7.7. Not much less. Not much to gain here either. And that's the limit for a single sensor camera. A physical limit which no amount of research or marketing can break.

But image processing is an area where significant gains should be obtainable. Intelligent algorithms which guess what was photographed and "paint" it for you without noise. What you see after noise reduction is not the original image, but an image painted by an algorithm showing what that algorithm "thinks" is in the picture. Improve that algorithm a lot and you can fish out more details and improve the subjective image quality by some stops.

You could attack the problem from three fronts:
1) Reduce minimum Read Noise (What's the minimum possible? Maybe 0.4?)
2) Increase Full Well Capacity (What is the maximum for 6 micron pixels? Maybe 79,000?)
3) Increase Quantum Efficiency (What is the maximum? Maybe 87%)

Please feel free to challenge my assumptions above.

Current 6D:
RN = 1.6
FWC = 74,256
QE = 47%

(1.6/0.4) x (79,000/74,256) x (87/47) = 4 x 1.06 x 1.85
= 7.84

Converting to stops: log(7.84)/log(2) = 2.97 stops

FWC depends on pixel size and limits of materials. I think the biggest potential improvements would be from reducing read noise not increasing QE.

 

[jeffa4444]

Has Canon eliminated FPN (fixed pattern noise)?
Has Canon reduced shadow noise to the levels of Sony/Nikon?
If Canon can do the above, will the IQ at base ISO equal that of Sony/Nikon in both noise and DR?

Am I the only person tiring of the constant bitching and negativity from this anti-Canon person?
Admittedly I don't post often, but I read every other day, and I'd prefer positivity about what Canon is doing than constant negativity about what a bitter person perceives is wrong with Canon cameras.
If Canon products really are that bad why does he even bother?

Im not a general Canon critic and overall Im more than happy with the 6D. But Dilbert who youve rubbished makes a valid point about low level banding on the 6D especially noticeable with grey skies and impossible to edit out in LR without creating other issues. Professionally I dont see this in Sony sensors so its technically possible to eliminate and something we should expect to be cured.
As for other improvements DR at 14 stops would be good, additional AF points and as stated elsewhere a cure for GPS battery drain. Im neither for or against a swivel screen as long as it doesnt compromise weather sealing.

 

[Don Haines]

Has Canon eliminated FPN (fixed pattern noise)?
Has Canon reduced shadow noise to the levels of Sony/Nikon?
If Canon can do the above, will the IQ at base ISO equal that of Sony/Nikon in both noise and DR?

Am I the only person tiring of the constant bitching and negativity from this anti-Canon person?
Admittedly I don't post often, but I read every other day, and I'd prefer positivity about what Canon is doing than constant negativity about what a bitter person perceives is wrong with Canon cameras.
If Canon products really are that bad why does he even bother?

Some people fixate on the positives, some people fixate on the negatives. I think we need both for a balanced viewpoint. Canon has some areas where they are not as good as they should be (sensors). They also have areas (lenses, ergonomics, AF, flash system) where they exceed the competition. Which direction to go depends on your needs so a good understanding of the plusses and minuses of your choices can only help you.

 

[midluk]

1.5 stops better high ISO? In RAW? No way!

In cooked JPEG - quite possible with additional processing power in easy scenes.

I'm always in for surprises. But if I read the sound comments of our experts here in the forum, 1/3 to 1/2 a stop would be a huge step forward already, given the current tech. Sorry for comparing apples to oranges now: in comparison to an a7s we talk about 24 MP vs 12 MP, and a different sensor tech as well. Anyway, if a 24 MP 6DII would deliever an 1.5 stops improvement in RAW, this would be fantastic. 3200ish ISO 8000, 6400ish ISO 18000 and 12800ish ISO 31000. Bring it on, put the same sensor into the 5DIV and I am a happy camper...;-)

Well, current sensors have about 50% quantum efficiency and 3 electrons of read noise.

Imagine you could double the quantum efficiency to 100% (which is the limit), you would gain 1 stop. (1 stop = doubling of light collected).

Then at these very low numbers we're at poisson noise and I don't have the numbers at hand but 3 electrons is not much. You need 100 electrons to get a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 with a perfect sensor. With 3 electrons of read noise that would be a signal-to-noise ratio of 100/13 = 7.7. Not much less. Not much to gain here either. And that's the limit for a single sensor camera. A physical limit which no amount of research or marketing can break.

But image processing is an area where significant gains should be obtainable. Intelligent algorithms which guess what was photographed and "paint" it for you without noise. What you see after noise reduction is not the original image, but an image painted by an algorithm showing what that algorithm "thinks" is in the picture. Improve that algorithm a lot and you can fish out more details and improve the subjective image quality by some stops.

You could attack the problem from three fronts:
1) Reduce minimum Read Noise (What's the minimum possible? Maybe 0.4?)
2) Increase Full Well Capacity (What is the maximum for 6 micron pixels? Maybe 79,000?)
3) Increase Quantum Efficiency (What is the maximum? Maybe 87%)

Please feel free to challenge my assumptions above.

Current 6D:
RN = 1.6
FWC = 74,256
QE = 47%

(1.6/0.4) x (79,000/74,256) x (87/47) = 4 x 1.06 x 1.85
= 7.84

Converting to stops: log(7.84)/log(2) = 2.97 stops

FWC depends on pixel size and limits of materials. I think the biggest potential improvements would be from reducing read noise not increasing QE.

How does FWC influence the low light performance when the wells are far from being full? Doesn't that only determine the minimum possible sensitivity/ISO for a given QE?
And I'm pretty sure you can not just multiply the ratios of RN and QE. In the signal to noise ratio the RN appears just as one summand in the denominator, while QE appears linearly in the numerator and as a square root in the sum in the denominator.

 

[Vivid Color]

The last thing I want in my DSLR is Android! Please don't do that.

+100

 

[Vivid Color]

I keep hearing people talk about potential durability issues with the articulating screen. Three points:

#1) This is the 6D. It's an "entry level" camera and not meant for rugged use.

#2) I hear the complaints from people who don't use articulating screens on Canon bodies. From people who DO use them, the comments are pretty much unanimous in praise for long-term durability and practicality for shooting in awkward positions or angles. Having now had three bodies with articulating screens and none failing so far (knock on wood) through pouring rain, desert sand, coastal salt spray, snowboarding wipe-outs -- even blood and hair from boning out an elk by myself -- and just about everything in between. Even skeptics, once they use it, find the articulating screen quite helpful.

#3) If you don't want it, leave it folded up, screen out. Then it's just like a fixed screen in terms of wear/breakage risk.

Two things kept me from getting the 6D: Scarce focus points and no articulating screen. When those two things are addressed, I won't even wait for a sale on Amazon!

I would love an articulating screen.

 

[davidmurray]

Has Canon eliminated FPN (fixed pattern noise)?
Has Canon reduced shadow noise to the levels of Sony/Nikon?
If Canon can do the above, will the IQ at base ISO equal that of Sony/Nikon in both noise and DR?

Am I the only person tiring of the constant bitching and negativity from this anti-Canon person?
Admittedly I don't post often, but I read every other day, and I'd prefer positivity about what Canon is doing than constant negativity about what a bitter person perceives is wrong with Canon cameras.
If Canon products really are that bad why does he even bother?

Some people fixate on the positives, some people fixate on the negatives. I think we need both for a balanced viewpoint. Canon has some areas where they are not as good as they should be (sensors). They also have areas (lenses, ergonomics, AF, flash system) where they exceed the competition. Which direction to go depends on your needs so a good understanding of the plusses and minuses of your choices can only help you.

In general agree with you about the desirability of a balanced view. I don't like 100% negativity, and those who only rant about how bad Canon cameras are just detract from the enjoyability and helpfulness of this website. If they truly believe that then I really don't understand why they bother to hang around on a Canon-focussed website.

 

[a4jp.com]

A swivelling LCD touchscreen would be very cool. Please make it bright like a Sony screen or Apple iPhone though I also hope the image quality is better. Pentax brought out a pixel shift resolution system which make the images look a lot clearer than that on the Canon cameras. Why can't the Canon cameras just merge multiple images to improve the quality? Hopefully full colored light sensors will be coming to us soon too. UV built into the sensors would also be fun. Wish I could design a few cameras for them.

 

[heptagon]

1.5 stops better high ISO? In RAW? No way!

In cooked JPEG - quite possible with additional processing power in easy scenes.

I'm always in for surprises. But if I read the sound comments of our experts here in the forum, 1/3 to 1/2 a stop would be a huge step forward already, given the current tech. Sorry for comparing apples to oranges now: in comparison to an a7s we talk about 24 MP vs 12 MP, and a different sensor tech as well. Anyway, if a 24 MP 6DII would deliever an 1.5 stops improvement in RAW, this would be fantastic. 3200ish ISO 8000, 6400ish ISO 18000 and 12800ish ISO 31000. Bring it on, put the same sensor into the 5DIV and I am a happy camper...;-)

Well, current sensors have about 50% quantum efficiency and 3 electrons of read noise.

Imagine you could double the quantum efficiency to 100% (which is the limit), you would gain 1 stop. (1 stop = doubling of light collected).

Then at these very low numbers we're at poisson noise and I don't have the numbers at hand but 3 electrons is not much. You need 100 electrons to get a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 with a perfect sensor. With 3 electrons of read noise that would be a signal-to-noise ratio of 100/13 = 7.7. Not much less. Not much to gain here either. And that's the limit for a single sensor camera. A physical limit which no amount of research or marketing can break.

But image processing is an area where significant gains should be obtainable. Intelligent algorithms which guess what was photographed and "paint" it for you without noise. What you see after noise reduction is not the original image, but an image painted by an algorithm showing what that algorithm "thinks" is in the picture. Improve that algorithm a lot and you can fish out more details and improve the subjective image quality by some stops.

You could attack the problem from three fronts:
1) Reduce minimum Read Noise (What's the minimum possible? Maybe 0.4?)
2) Increase Full Well Capacity (What is the maximum for 6 micron pixels? Maybe 79,000?)
3) Increase Quantum Efficiency (What is the maximum? Maybe 87%)

Please feel free to challenge my assumptions above.

Current 6D:
RN = 1.6
FWC = 74,256
QE = 47%

(1.6/0.4) x (79,000/74,256) x (87/47) = 4 x 1.06 x 1.85
= 7.84

Converting to stops: log(7.84)/log(2) = 2.97 stops

FWC depends on pixel size and limits of materials. I think the biggest potential improvements would be from reducing read noise not increasing QE.

This calculation has some flaws.

The full-well-capacity is not important at high ISO when you have only so few photons per pixel.

The quantum efficiency works as expected on the light collection.

But light collection also generates noise because it is a statistical Poisson process. The photons are not hitting the sensor in an ordered fashion like a stream of water drops from a dripping faucet. They are rather hitting the sensor like raindrops. If you get 100 photons on average per pixel, you will get a deviation of sqrt(100)=10 simply due to the fact that some pixels get more and others get less photons than the average. If you increase the number of photons per pixel to 400 the statistical deviations will increase to 20 and you have a net gain in SNR of 2.

Now if you consider the read noise, you can add it to the statistical Poisson noise as

total_noise = sqrt( poisson_noise^2 + read_noise^2 )

The poisson noise is dominant even for very low photon counts >10 and then the read noise is not very important anymore.* This means that even if you have a noiseless sensor, you will still have noisy images.

When you look at the sensor performance at DXOmark, there is little difference at high ISO for good sensors of the same size. This is, because we are approaching the physical limits. In order to get better numbers "on paper" you will have to "cook" the RAW files with noise reduction algorithms which remove detail from the images.


*: If the read noise is not random you will get noise patterns which are much worse than random noise due to the fact that we recognize patterns easily. The best sensors therefore eliminate pattern noise.

 

[Antono Refa]

I don't see apps on Canon cameras for two reasons:

1. It would create competition with Canon.

Why buy timer remote controller when you can buy a cheaper app that would cover the same function?

Why upgrade a camera to have AEB take more photos, when you buy a cheaper app that would increase the number?

2. Apps raise the suspicion EOS cameras and EF lenses that support through-the-mount firmware upgrades would be infected or damaged with malware. Combine with wi-fi, and that raise the suspicion of remote infection.

I don't see Canon investing / wasting time on creating a screened apps store like Apple and Amazon, or wasting lab workers' time trying to figure out whether it's a hardware problem or malware problem.

 

[Sabaki]

My opinion...

...Canon love their end-to-end 100% Canon system. Their software, firmware, chipsets, everything is all Canon.

Now if they're not willing to budge and move to 3rd party chipsets, why use 3rd party firmware?