Jeff Cable's Blog: April 2023

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Using the Canon R6 Mark II: My initial thoughts

Most of you know that I switched to all mirrorless cameras about a year ago, mainly using the Canon R6, Canon R5 and the Canon R3 bodies. Everything has been going great with these three camera bodies, but with the release of the Canon R6 MK II, I decided to sell my Canon R6 and switch to the new body.

I have been using the Canon R6 MK II for a while now and wanted to give you my initial thoughts.

Why I wanted to upgrade

First of all, let me tell you why I switched to the new camera. I thought that it would be nice to have the following (in order of importance to me):

* Higher resolution (24.2MP vs 20.1MP)

* Even better auto focus (face and eye detection)

* A faster frame rate (40fps vs 20fps)

I also like to be using the latest and greatest cameras since Canon is always upping their game.

Much like the Canon R6, the image quality is exceptional, capturing great detail, color and clarity. So now I have the same great quality with the increased resolution. This is a good thing, although it is not a massive change going from 20MP to 24MP. In many ways, the newer camera acts and feels like the original R6, but in some ways it is very different. More to come on that later.

Below are some images I captured on the Canon R6 MK II while on our photo tour in Japan last month.

The overall ergonomics and weight of the camera stay the same, which is a good thing since I have had no issues with this on any of the Canon mirrorless cameras (other than the original Canon R with the touch bar).

I have been blown away with how good the subject and eye detection has been on the recent Canon mirrorless cameras, and heard that with the R6 MK II, it was even better. When selecting the subject to detect, there is now a menu option for "Auto" which I assumed would save me jumping between "people" and "animals", which I do fairly frequently since I use the camera for local events and photo tours. But so far I have found that choosing my subject type manually (like with the Canon R6) gives me better results. There is also an option for the eye detection which lets me choose "Auto", "Right eye" or "Left eye". I am not sure why I would ever use this, since I almost always want to focus on the eye that is closest to me, not caring which side that is. Auto does a great job and I just leave that as my default.

The faster frame rate is a nice to have, but not a real selling point for me, since I rarely use the highest frame rate of my Canon R3 (other than to capture fast action in sports). But...if I am going to capture fast action, I will still default to the R3. The typical photographer would never need 40 fps, but I guess it is nice to have that option for sports of wildlife photography. The only drawback of 40fps, is having to go through so many similar images in post production.

I know that there are many improvements when shooting video with the Canon R6 MK II, but since I am primarily a still shooter, I will leave that to the videographers.

The one change I don't like

Now let me talk about the one "feature" that I do not like on the new Canon R6 MK II. They moved the power switch to the right side of the camera. That may not sound like a big deal, but to us photographers who have gotten used to all the buttons and dials, this is a real pain. Not only did they move the power switch to the right, there is another switch (almost exactly where the power switch used to be) for selecting still image mode or video mode. I have built up many years of muscle memory, and have used the wrong switch countless times in the last month. It is really frustrating. When I am using the Canon R6 MK II in combination with the Canon R3 (where the power is on the back of the camera) it is less confusing. When using the Canon R6 MK II in combination with the Canon R5, I have to consciously remember which camera I am using, to make sure I am turning the camera off and not switching to video mode.

Was it worth the upgrade?

The big question I ask myself is: Was it really worth upgrading from the Canon R6 to the Canon R6 MK II? And the answer is a little convoluted. I really love the camera and the images look awesome, but this was true from the R6. The increased resolution is nice to have, but not a massive difference. I have yet to use the burst rate of 40fps, so that is not a factor. Lastly, the auto focus is excellent, but again, it was excellent in the original. So it comes down to the cost. I was able to sell my R6 and purchase the new R6 MK II for a net difference of about $400. I think it is worth that to be using the latest and greatest. If you are looking to upgrade from a DSLR camera or an older Canon R, either camera would be a great addition to your camera bag. I think the big difference will come down to budget. If you are willing to pay $500 more for the newest model, then the Canon R6 MK II is your camera. If you are on a tighter budget, the original Canon R6 will cost less and is still is a great choice, while they are still offered.

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Thursday, April 6, 2023

The baboons and monkeys in Tanzania: Always fun to photograph

In the last blog post I talked about the flamingos in Africa. Today's post is all about the baboons and monkeys in Tanzania. We actually saw fewer baboons and monkeys than on our typical safaris in the region, but the sightings were great nonetheless. And I was able to photograph two new species I had never seen before.

These first images are of the baboons.

Whenever we take guests to Tanzania, the baby animals are a highlight. It doesn't matter what animal we are watching, the youngsters always get the most attention and the most photographs. For me personally, I love capturing the interaction between the baby baboons and the adults. There is SO much personality in the youngsters! They climb all over the adults, on the backs, hang under their bellies, and will hop a ride any chance they can get.

When we are with a large pack of baboon, I try to point out the most active youngsters so that people get nice photos of them. Part of that is waiting to get the animals in the right location and best light. In this case, we had overcast skies (neutral light) and the baboons moved into a clearing. Time to fire away!

As we were driving up the outside of the Ngorongoro Crater, we came across some baboons on the raised side of the road. It was perfect because they ended up being right at our eye level. I saw this one youngster feeding in front of us and liked the concentration and catch light in it's eyes.

Believe it or not, all the rest of these photos were taken on our last day in Tanzania. We were staying at one of my favorite places, spending the bulk of the day relaxing and keying down from almost two weeks of go, go, go. I have seen smaller monkeys in this area but this was my first time seeing the White throated monkey.

Even though I had taken tens of thousands of photos on the trip, and you think I might be shot out at this point, I could not help myself. I really wanted photos of these monkeys!

Just like with the baboons, I was mostly keying in on the youngsters. I took this photo right outside my room. I shot it vertically to show the length of the adult's tail, but also felt that it did not show enough of the monkey's faces.

This is a crop of the above image. Because I was shooting with the Canon R5 (using the Canon RF100-500mm lens) with a lot of resolution, I could crop in and still have a ton of detail. You can see a lot more of both monkey's eyes in this version. I really like this image...

As always, I am always looking for action and reaction. This monkey was grabbing it's own tail while calling out to the others.

This little one was playing with it's tail while hanging out in a tree. Really cute.

I was just about done photographing the white throated monkeys when I saw this little one looking right at me, in between the leafs of a nearby tree. It was in perfect light. Gotta get that!

Seeing the Colobus monkey was another first for me. I was totally captivated by the long white tails on these monkeys. They stayed pretty high in the trees, making it a pretty difficult shot to get.

This was one of the last photos I took on this last trip to Tanzania, and I really love it because I saw something new and different. That is the best part of going on safari. No matter how many times one goes, there is always something new to photograph.

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