The Canon EOS R6 Mark II – it has its fan club. A pretty big fan club at that.
But even those of us who love this camera body can have a few complaints.
No camera is perfect. But are the “not so good things” a deal breaker for the R6II?
First up I’ll say a clear NO. None of these things will stop me using the R6II. It’s an awesome body. These things wouldn’t have stopped me buying it either, although I wish I’d known about them before purchasing.
I love a full frame camera any day of the week and I was never going to pass up on Canon’s latest offering. In fact I’m going so far as to say that this is the best camera I’ve used in the past 15 years.
Anyway – I’ll keep this short and sweet. Here are 4 things you may or may not choose to dislike about the Canon R6 Mark II.
I’m more inclined to say these are things that kind of annoy or bother me if I really let them.
1. Only 24MP
24MP was a pretty standard DSLR full frame resolution and I can’t say that it’s low resolution but wouldn’t it be nice to have something like 36MP in the R6II.
For birds we don’t typically want to be cropping a huge amount and if you do find yourself cropping a full frame 24MP it can leave you lacking in the pixels department.
On the other hand the availability of more affordable longer telephotos does reduce the cravings for more resolution to an extent.
And as always, improving your fieldcraft to fill the frame more with a subject to reduce cropping will get you the most out of these 24 megapixels.
2. Battery Life
There’s no doubt the battery life could be better.
Even if I’m only going out for two or three hours I’ll take at least one spare battery, but preferably more with me. Don’t rely on a single battery with this camera.
3. Overheating
Unless you live or regularly shoot in a warm environment (over 30 celcius or 85F) or you’re not doing a lot of 4K video you’ll probably never notice this, but the R6II seems to have a tendency to overheat and I find myself avoiding using it in direct sun for too long on warm days.
I also don’t feel comfortable doing lots of uninterrupted 4K video without giving the camera a chance to “rest” and cool down.
I’ve had a few lockups in those situations and can’t think of any other reason besides the fact that it’s a heat issue, because it never happens at any other time.
4. Lack of All-I Video Compression
Certainly not a dealbreaker and not really something you notice in the real world, but it would’ve been nice if Canon included Intraframe (ALL-I) compression in the R6II. If you’re not a video person this isn’t an issue at all, but I do regular video and I got used to using All-I on the EOS-R.
Basically this compression method helps manage video file sizes (see here if you want an in depth explanation).
The R6II only gives us IPB/Group of Pictures (GOP) which results in increased video compression. Genereally ALL-I will be higher quality so this is a small let down on the R6II.