What do you think will be the Shelf life of the EOS 6D ?

[CarlTN]

You'll find I'm correct about a lot of things

My, someone's take a lot of self confidence pills this morning :-> ... or do you have any professional/nda insight into Canon internals?

and don't compare 1.6x crop cameras to full frame. The 6D's price on new units has fallen about as far as it ever will until its replacement is announced.

Big -1 ... it's dropping €25 every week and now reached nearly €1600, that's coming from €2100 at the start of the year when the 6d was just out. I'd wager the guess it will continue dropping like this to at least €1400 and Canon will still make a healthy profit looking at the build quality & components of the 6d.

Used units still holding up well, as I have stated a few times.

Same with 5d2, and that's discontinued - to me it seems L lenses and ff cameras simply have a high resale value, no matter what the current market position of new units is.

Not sure I agree 100%, but mostly we agree. I don't speak in terms of euros, or whatever that symbol is...I'm only familiar with prices I have seen in US Dollars. I have no idea how the pricing is going in Europe, other than apparently the 6D has sold for generally a higher price than the Nikon D600 over there...as some of you have pointed out to me.

1600 euros, is like $2,200, is it not? It would almost save you money if you just flew here and bought a US version, then flew home. Well, maybe if you stowed away aboard a freighter ship or something!

 

[Loswr]

You'll find I'm correct about a lot of things...and don't compare 1.6x crop cameras to full frame. The 6D's price on new units has fallen about as far as it ever will until its replacement is announced. Used units still holding up well, as I have stated a few times. If you start seeing a lot of used units in new condtion start selling below $1400, I will be very surprised.

You will find that it is you who are mistaken, about a great many things. . Sorry, Star Wars marathon was on recently.

FWIW, it's current price is a couple of hundred dollars higher than it was a couple of months ago.

An even lower nadir would not come as a surprise to me, perhaps even before the holidays. A crop user upgrading to FF means Canon profits from EF lenses bought to replace EF-S lenses

 

[CarlTN]

You'll find I'm correct about a lot of things...and don't compare 1.6x crop cameras to full frame. The 6D's price on new units has fallen about as far as it ever will until its replacement is announced. Used units still holding up well, as I have stated a few times. If you start seeing a lot of used units in new condtion start selling below $1400, I will be very surprised.

You will find that it is you who are mistaken, about a great many things. . Sorry, Star Wars marathon was on recently.

FWIW, it's current price is a couple of hundred dollars higher than it was a couple of months ago.

An even lower nadir would not come as a surprise to me, perhaps even before the holidays. A crop user upgrading to FF means Canon profits from EF lenses bought to replace EF-S lenses

I was speaking about the recent low prices posted on CR from ebay sellers for supposed "new" units, in the $1500 to $1600 range (which is about 1000 euros or so...) I paid $1760 for mine, new...but got a card and a small camera bag as part of the deal...so the total was $1790.

If you're saying we will see, for example either Adorama, B&H, or Amazon, selling a new 6D body by holidays 2013, for under $1500 US dollars...I will be surprised. If that does happen, then it is likely there could be a short-lived swath of "used" units selling around $1400 or a bit under, in the months following (after they play with it a while and wait for the price on new units to climb back above $1700 or so).

Don't ever apologize to me for Star Wars quotes!! "Who's the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?" The answer is obvious, but he was illustrating a point...to not follow fools.

Apparently 2010 was a very kind year to you...

 

[eha]

[list type=decimal]
[*]The 6D's AF system is not old or bad in any way. I've used the 5D2 quite a bit, and the AF system of my 6D is simply much, much better. It's more responsive, faster and more reliable. Although it's not as good as the 5D3 or the 7D in most areas, it's leagues ahead of 5D2 which feels outdated.
[*]The IQ of the 6D is at least as good as 5D3 (slightly less detail, but also slightly less noise).
[*]The build of the 6D is at least as good as my 7D, and ergonomics are way better than the 5D2. It's just way more modern in every aspect. It's light and it still feels utterly solid. Bravo, Canon!
[*]Wifi and GPS are very useful.
[*]The silent mode is really great!
[*]It has interchangable focus screens!
[*]The camera is a joy to use. Extremely reponsive and fast. Great value and leagues ahead of 5D2.
[/list]

These are facts that spec nazis will never understand.

Shelf life? Pfft. Happy picture taking

 

[verysimplejason]

The only thing I want to improve in 6D is to have at least a 9-11 pts all cross type AF with -2EV sensitivity (or 19AF which maybe is too much to ask for?), 8 bit channel read (I envy what ML might do with a 70D) and compact flash card instead of SD. I can still wait a little bit for the next generation 6D since I don't trust 1st generations that much. 8)

 

[Janbo Makimbo]

[list type=decimal]
[*]The 6D's AF system is not old or bad in any way. I've used the 5D2 quite a bit, and the AF system of my 6D is simply much, much better. It's more responsive, faster and more reliable. Although it's not as good as the 5D3 or the 7D in most areas, it's leagues ahead of 5D2 which feels outdated.
[*]The IQ of the 6D is at least as good as 5D3 (slightly less detail, but also slightly less noise).
[*]The build of the 6D is at least as good as my 7D, and ergonomics are way better than the 5D2. It's just way more modern in every aspect. It's light and it still feels utterly solid. Bravo, Canon!
[*]Wifi and GPS are very useful.
[*]The silent mode is really great!
[*]It has interchangable focus screens!
[*]The camera is a joy to use. Extremely reponsive and fast. Great value and leagues ahead of 5D2.
[/list]

These are facts that spec nazis will never understand.

Shelf life? Pfft. Happy picture taking

+1

 

[Hillsilly]

Canon's upgrade cycle seems more aligned with the price of the camera. My crystal ball is telling me 18months. We'll see a 6Dii mid next year.

The release of the 7Dii will be the big factor. If the 7Dii has an improved sensor, improved AF and sells for a similar price to the 6D, I can see Canon rolling out a 6Dii shortly after. I suspect the 6Dii will have more megapixels (>24mp) and maybe slightly improved AF. For around $2k, you could then choose performance and better weather sealing with the 7Dii (which will probably stay around 16mp), higher MP with the 6Dii, or spend a little more for the 5Diii for a better combination of performance and features with a FF body.

My old banger is a 1Ds Mkii. I've been thinking about upgrading it for a while, but I'm a member of a camera club and every month we get a well known photographer to be a guest speaker. Nearly all of them are professional photographers. A surprising number still use the same camera as me. Very few have new cameras. While that probably says more about the pay rates of photographers, it also shows that you often don't need the latest and greatest as long as you know how to use your camera properly. In my case, as long as I stay in the 100-400 ISO range (which I do 99% of the time), the images are comparable with all other cameras. And if I venture into higher ISOs, it isn't as though the images are "bad". Shelf life - wouldn't worry about it. As long as a new camera doesn't offer something that you "need", who cares about it?

 

[jrista]

Personally, I think a camera has a shelf life for as long as it is useful to you, and not holding you back from your real potential. Particularly with the latter, if either of those become untrue, then you probably need to upgrade.

Recently I purchased the EF 600mm f/4 L IS II. I purchased it because my previous lens, the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS, was holding be back. I couldn't fill the frame with my subjects, and even when I did manage to, things weren't as sharp as I really wanted. My upgrade was incredibly expensive...however it solved my problems, I am no longer being held back by my lens, and this purchase should last me for 20 years, if not a lifetime.

(Only problem now is I realize the 7D really is a noisy bugger, and it's AF system is rather spotty...)

 

[eha]

The only thing I want to improve in 6D is to have at least a 9-11 pts all cross type AF with -2EV sensitivity (or 19AF which maybe is too much to ask for?), 8 bit channel read (I envy what ML might do with a 70D) and compact flash card instead of SD. I can still wait a little bit for the next generation 6D since I don't trust 1st generations that much. 8)

There's really no need for CF cards anymore, now that there's UHS-I (which only 6D and not 5D3 supports, by the way) and the soon-to-come UHS-II SD card standard which approaches 250 MB/s read/write speeds.

 

[CarlTN]

[list type=decimal]
[*]The 6D's AF system is not old or bad in any way. I've used the 5D2 quite a bit, and the AF system of my 6D is simply much, much better. It's more responsive, faster and more reliable. Although it's not as good as the 5D3 or the 7D in most areas, it's leagues ahead of 5D2 which feels outdated.
[*]The IQ of the 6D is at least as good as 5D3 (slightly less detail, but also slightly less noise).
[*]The build of the 6D is at least as good as my 7D, and ergonomics are way better than the 5D2. It's just way more modern in every aspect. It's light and it still feels utterly solid. Bravo, Canon!
[*]Wifi and GPS are very useful.
[*]The silent mode is really great!
[*]It has interchangable focus screens!
[*]The camera is a joy to use. Extremely reponsive and fast. Great value and leagues ahead of 5D2.
[/list]

These are facts that spec nazis will never understand.

Shelf life? Pfft. Happy picture taking

Well said!

 

[jrista]

The only thing I want to improve in 6D is to have at least a 9-11 pts all cross type AF with -2EV sensitivity (or 19AF which maybe is too much to ask for?), 8 bit channel read (I envy what ML might do with a 70D) and compact flash card instead of SD. I can still wait a little bit for the next generation 6D since I don't trust 1st generations that much. 8)

There's really no need for CF cards anymore, now that there's UHS-I (which only 6D and not 5D3 supports, by the way) and the soon-to-come UHS-II SD card standard which approaches 250 MB/s read/write speeds.

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use. As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time. So, while a brand new SD UHS-II might achieve 250mb/s, I am always wary about that amazing performance degrading to half that, or less, within a month or two of my average use (I usually come home with 32 to 48 Gb of new photos from each outing, and there are times when I'm out photographing every day of the week.) So far, my four 16Gb Transcend CF 600x cards are still spinning like new over a year and a half later. I can't recall a single SD card that ever performed at its peak for more than a couple months.

So...I wouldn't call CF irrelevant. It is far from it.

 

[CarlTN]

The only thing I want to improve in 6D is to have at least a 9-11 pts all cross type AF with -2EV sensitivity (or 19AF which maybe is too much to ask for?), 8 bit channel read (I envy what ML might do with a 70D) and compact flash card instead of SD. I can still wait a little bit for the next generation 6D since I don't trust 1st generations that much. 8)

There's really no need for CF cards anymore, now that there's UHS-I (which only 6D and not 5D3 supports, by the way) and the soon-to-come UHS-II SD card standard which approaches 250 MB/s read/write speeds.

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use. As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time. So, while a brand new SD UHS-II might achieve 250mb/s, I am always wary about that amazing performance degrading to half that, or less, within a month or two of my average use (I usually come home with 32 to 48 Gb of new photos from each outing, and there are times when I'm out photographing every day of the week.) So far, my four 16Gb Transcend CF 600x cards are still spinning like new over a year and a half later. I can't recall a single SD card that ever performed at its peak for more than a couple months.

So...I wouldn't call CF irrelevant. It is far from it.

Out of curiosity, what UHS-I SD cards have you used, and on what devices?

 

[dgatwood]

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use.

That's probably caused by the cameras not supporting TRIM (which allows the flash part to pre-erase flash pages that contain only deleted files so that writing to them does not require you to wait for an erase cycle) and/or not having enough spares (which are pre-erased ahead of time).

As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

AFAIK, almost all flash cards made since the late 1990s have wear leveling. Even 2000-era CF cards did wear leveling. Not all SD cards (or all CF cards, for that matter) do static wear leveling, unfortunately. This means that flash pages that never change also never get migrated to new pages so that the low-write-count pages can be used for new content. As a result, if you fill up a card and then repeatedly delete one picture and rewrite it, you'll start hitting write errors much more quickly than you would with a better flash card.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time.

Wear leveling has nothing to do with write performance. Wear leveling is about write endurance—how long you can keep replacing files before the part starts generating I/O errors.

 

[CarlTN]

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use.

That's probably caused by the cameras not supporting TRIM (which allows the flash part to pre-erase flash pages that contain only deleted files so that writing to them does not require you to wait for an erase cycle) and/or not having enough spares (which are pre-erased ahead of time).

As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

AFAIK, almost all flash cards made since the late 1990s have wear leveling. Even 2000-era CF cards did wear leveling. Not all SD cards (or all CF cards, for that matter) do static wear leveling, unfortunately. This means that flash pages that never change also never get migrated to new pages so that the low-write-count pages can be used for new content. As a result, if you fill up a card and then repeatedly delete one picture and rewrite it, you'll start hitting write errors much more quickly than you would with a better flash card.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time.

Wear leveling has nothing to do with write performance. Wear leveling is about write endurance—how long you can keep replacing files before the part starts generating I/O errors.

I learn something new every day!

 

[jrista]

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use.

That's probably caused by the cameras not supporting TRIM (which allows the flash part to pre-erase flash pages that contain only deleted files so that writing to them does not require you to wait for an erase cycle) and/or not having enough spares (which are pre-erased ahead of time).

As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

AFAIK, almost all flash cards made since the late 1990s have wear leveling. Even 2000-era CF cards did wear leveling. Not all SD cards (or all CF cards, for that matter) do static wear leveling, unfortunately. This means that flash pages that never change also never get migrated to new pages so that the low-write-count pages can be used for new content. As a result, if you fill up a card and then repeatedly delete one picture and rewrite it, you'll start hitting write errors much more quickly than you would with a better flash card.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time.

Wear leveling has nothing to do with write performance. Wear leveling is about write endurance—how long you can keep replacing files before the part starts generating I/O errors.

I know CF cards have had decent wear leveling for a while. I used to use SanDisk SD cards for a number of generations until last year when I got a 7D. I remember them being quite slow most of the time, even on newer compacts that had UHS support. I am not sure if any of the cameras had TRIM support or not, but it would make sense if that was the primary cause of the performance degredation. I've never really been a formatter...I don't think I've ever formatted even one of my CF cards, and I did not format my SD cards very often. It is entirely possible that forced continual wiping of deleted files for each write...I can understand that decimating write performance.

I suspect the 7D does support TRIM, as my CF cards seem to be as clippy today as they've ever been (I can still usually burst ~35 shots before the camera slows down, and before the 7D firmware update, I was usually able to burst 28, when the actual rated limits were 18 and 24, and most of these cards are over a year old, having been written to hundreds of times.)

 

[yura5555]

I think it'll depend on what Nikon does with the D600. I'm hoping it'll get replaced sooner rather than later with a better AF system so my hope would be around 2 years.

It is obvious how canon sees the camera, the 6D falls into the same CPS category as a 40D which should hopefully mean it'll be changed quicker. It would also be a reasonable upgrade if they specced it with a better AF system and could see the enthusiasts upgrade.

well, I have both the 6D and D600 and the D600 AF is not better in any area.
seriously , the D600 AF is the same old consumer grade AF of the D7000, which is very inaccurate and unreliable.
you may be an only Canon system user and are not very aware of the other side(Nikon).

many many Nikon shooters consider the D600/7000 AF was one of the worst AF systems ever made by Nikon despite of its quite decent paper specs.

Nikon tends to give you great numbers on paper but in real life it does not work as well as the spec sheet suggests.
I wished my D600 had gotten the same AF used in my D800E(or the D4).
That said even the D4 AF is not as good as the 5D3 AF , and the for that AF , I may make complete switch to Canon after a couple of church events over in this summer.
I still prefer UI of Nikon since I am very very very used to shooting D800/D700/D600 but now video and AF are becoming most important aspect of camera qualities, at least in my area of work.
the 6d AF on paper is poor , but in real life it is excellent, at least the center point of it is very very sensitive and reliable even in an extremely dark church or rave.
I think having even one very sensitive AF sensor is better than having useless 39 points that cannot focus in dim light.
honestly, the D600 is one of the most over rated and hyped cameras ever , it is not that good.
it has dust issue , LV issue ,LCD green cast issue and its weak plastic pop-up flash makes my PCE lenses useless(I really hate popup-crap , and never understand why Nikon has to put that crap in every Nikon prosumer camera?)
the 6D was harshly criticized when it was first announced but most of its actual users love it while many many D600 users having the infamous dust issue or AF issue or LV issue or all of these like me.
so, if possible, go Amazon.com and read some D600 horror stories and compared that to EOS6D reviews.
the 6D is bashed only by haters or trolls but the real users love it.

+1. I've upgraded from 350D - had it for 7,5 years. i think for my prosumer photos it'll be great for another 5-7 years IQ is great, central AF is great even in dim light (get used to only one point on 350D).

and now i have no regrets or thoughts of another upgrade.

only bought on sale EOS M + 22f2 + 18-55 STM + 90 EX + mount adapter - to use as second camera (for parents/wife) - or travel purposes and mount big EF lenses when want to

so doesn't matter shelf life. What does matter - do you like it and pictures made by it, or not and want something else (than look 5dMk3 or new 7dMk2 or else)

P.s. as for SD cards - for ordinary users SD cards are better - i just bought 2 sundisk 64gb 30mbs MicroSD +adapter for 50$ each - and have no problems with buffer or video records - and i can use they same card with tablet/phone/Macbook Pro etc.

 

[dgatwood]

There are other problems with SD cards. The worst being that they degrade in performance rather considerably, shockingly quickly once they start getting use.

That's probably caused by the cameras not supporting TRIM (which allows the flash part to pre-erase flash pages that contain only deleted files so that writing to them does not require you to wait for an erase cycle) and/or not having enough spares (which are pre-erased ahead of time).

As far as I know, only a few of the top end SD card types (i.e. SanDisk Extreme Pro) actually perform any kind of wear leveling.

AFAIK, almost all flash cards made since the late 1990s have wear leveling. Even 2000-era CF cards did wear leveling. Not all SD cards (or all CF cards, for that matter) do static wear leveling, unfortunately. This means that flash pages that never change also never get migrated to new pages so that the low-write-count pages can be used for new content. As a result, if you fill up a card and then repeatedly delete one picture and rewrite it, you'll start hitting write errors much more quickly than you would with a better flash card.

All of the major CF cards, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Lexar, do wear leveling in their UDMA 6 and 7 devices, so they maintain their write performance for a much longer period of time.

Wear leveling has nothing to do with write performance. Wear leveling is about write endurance—how long you can keep replacing files before the part starts generating I/O errors.

I know CF cards have had decent wear leveling for a while. I used to use SanDisk SD cards for a number of generations until last year when I got a 7D. I remember them being quite slow most of the time, even on newer compacts that had UHS support. I am not sure if any of the cameras had TRIM support or not, but it would make sense if that was the primary cause of the performance degredation. I've never really been a formatter...I don't think I've ever formatted even one of my CF cards, and I did not format my SD cards very often. It is entirely possible that forced continual wiping of deleted files for each write...I can understand that decimating write performance.

I suspect the 7D does support TRIM, as my CF cards seem to be as clippy today as they've ever been (I can still usually burst ~35 shots before the camera slows down, and before the 7D firmware update, I was usually able to burst 28, when the actual rated limits were 18 and 24, and most of these cards are over a year old, having been written to hundreds of times.)

TRIM was introduced in CF 6.0, which was not finalized until 2010 (a year after the 7D was released). So if the 7D supports TRIM, it was added in a firmware update.

The SD standard has provided an ERASE command since the dawn of time that can be used to pre-erase a flash page. eMMC 4.5 (2011) defined a more exact TRIM equivalent that lets the flash card decide when to erase the page.

 

[johnhenry]

I would say it has a lifespan similar to some of the prosumer models. It is kind of a stopgap camera, meant to test the waters to see how a FF camera with fewer features would do.

I Believe it would just scavenge sales from their Pro FF cameras, not generate addition revenue by "upselling" people from lower cost cameras.

 

[pedro]

Canon's upgrade cycle seems more aligned with the price of the camera. My crystal ball is telling me 18months. We'll see a 6Dii mid next year.

The release of the 7Dii will be the big factor. If the 7Dii has an improved sensor, improved AF and sells for a similar price to the 6D, I can see Canon rolling out a 6Dii shortly after. I suspect the 6Dii will have more megapixels (>24mp) and maybe slightly improved AF. For around $2k, you could then choose performance and better weather sealing with the 7Dii (which will probably stay around 16mp), higher MP with the 6Dii, or spend a little more for the 5Diii for a better combination of performance and features with a FF body.

My old banger is a 1Ds Mkii. I've been thinking about upgrading it for a while, but I'm a member of a camera club and every month we get a well known photographer to be a guest speaker. Nearly all of them are professional photographers. A surprising number still use the same camera as me. Very few have new cameras. While that probably says more about the pay rates of photographers, it also shows that you often don't need the latest and greatest as long as you know how to use your camera properly. In my case, as long as I stay in the 100-400 ISO range (which I do 99% of the time), the images are comparable with all other cameras. And if I venture into higher ISOs, it isn't as though the images are "bad". Shelf life - wouldn't worry about it. As long as a new camera doesn't offer something that you "need", who cares about it?

Well said, sane statement. As I like extreme ISOs at very low light (did so in filmdays as well, had a Contax 139 Quartz and a Carl Zeiss 85 f/1.8 for just that) I am more than happy with the 5D3 I purchased about 11 month ago while upgrading from a 30D which I shot for more than five years. I only shot about 5400 frames to date on the 5D3. But I absolutely like it. It is my perfect allround high ISO tool. Even insanely high ISOs work out quite fine...
ISO 51k (not much difference to original sized RAW file, some decent NR and adjustments in DPP, slightest PS processing)

Z96A5407bTLKlein by Peter Hauri, on Flickr


Z96A5407bTLBWKleindefCrop by Peter Hauri, on Flickr

 

[Loswr]

If you're saying we will see, for example either Adorama, B&H, or Amazon, selling a new 6D body by holidays 2013, for under $1500 US dollars...I will be surprised.

Are you surprised?

http://www.canonrumors.com/2013/10/deal-canon-eos-6d-body-1575-at-bh-photo/

Granted, it's not under US$1500, technically. But you get 4% back, meaning net $1512, and it's a bundle including $145 worth of extras, which could be sold to bring the final net cost down well under $1500.

Oh, and it's not quite to the holidays yet - we're still a few weeks short of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.