It’s All in the Camera (Canon 6D)

Happy 1-year-birthday to my Canon 6D camera.

And since my camera and I have been spending some extra time hanging out in “studio” this past week with some newborns, I figured it was time to acknowledge all her hard work and extend gratitude for all the ways she makes my life a whole lot easier than it could be.

And, periodically I get questions about camera recommendations, or other things photography, so I figured I’d take a post to give a little camera rundown.

Before this camera I had run my previous cameras ragged (Canon 10D and Canon 30D).  They were fantastic cameras, and that X0D series is a wonderful and affordable bridge between the Rebels and the higher end professional cameras. I had collected a few lenses over the years – some fancier than others, and I have realized about myself that there are certain features I really like in DSLR cameras, but that in general I really prefer to avoid the technical nitty gritty.  I like to play photography, not pour over my manual endlessly nor spend precious image-capturing time making minor adjustments to my settings.  I had been looking at investing in a 5D Mark II (the Mark III, while amazing, is out of my price range).  This 6D had just come out and the guy at the camera shop convinced me that it parallels (or in some features, even exceeds) the 5D Mark II.  Of course, I can’t remember what he said that convinced me, but I can say I’m thrilled with the camera I got.

Things I especially like (and gained) with the switch to the Canon 6D:

• Unbelievably wide ISO range.  We can almost take night photography (even of the stars) by hand – although most often we’ll use a tripod.  The data/grain lost in raising the ISO of my previous cameras past 800 is negligible.  I’m much more comfortable shooting in 800 or even way higher and am happy with the images that have resulted.  The natural-light photographer in me LOVES this feature.
• Full Frame, capable of making crisp images way larger than I ever plan to print them.
• Video capabilities.  While I rarely take video, I appreciate the ease of taking it with my camera, and loading the digital file.
• A far superior viewing screen on the back of camera.
• Cheaper than the 5D Mark III (on Amazon: Canon 6D vs. Canon 5D Mark III).

Things that took getting used to:

• Memory Storage: It takes SD cards (and all my previous memory cards are compact flash)
• Full Frame: I had to retire some of my (cheaper) lenses that were not compatible with the full frame (all the photos would end up with a black circle border).
• No On-camera Flash: But the amazing ISO capabilities make up for 90% of my previous need for a flash, and I have an external flash and a modest set of amvona studio lights (softboxes) I use for the other 10%.
• HUGE file sizes: we promptly went out and bought another external hard drive, and should be good for a while now.
• RAW: version of Raw that my other Raw-reading programs couldn’t read.  We found and downloaded a DNG converter so I’d convert all the files to DNG and then process (I love LOVE the raw batch processor in Photoshop CS3) and then I save the edited versions in JPG.

Aside from loving my new(ish) camera…the photography sphere is thriving because I joined a photography group – six women who meet each month to spur each other on.

And here are some photos Tyler took with my camera with the studio set up this past week.