as the lightest, smallest full-frame SLR in the world. So, as a landscape

and travel photographer this really intrigued me and I bought one of

the first copies to ship. So this review is not going to be based on marketing sheets

or data sheets or anything like that. This is going to be based on hands-on

experience with the camera. I'm really excited to be doing this review

now after having used the camera for the last year and I've put on about 50,000 shutter

actuations, so it's gotten some good use into it in the first year. So

in this review we're going to take a look at my experience with the

camera and we're going to take a look at all the good things, the bad things, and all the

stuff in between.

Landscape photography is a very unforgiving avenue when it comes to the conditions that

equipment has to endure - saltwater, salt flats, high mountains, hail,

rain, sleet, sand, snow, saltwater - these are all conditions that the

Canon 6D has been subjected to, fortunately and unfortunately, in the past year of use.

So, when first holding the Canon 6D for the first time, the lightness and the smallness

is really noticeable. In fact, if you're used to using a Canon 5D or

a Nikon D3 or a Nikon D700 or a D800 or something like that, in that

range, this thing is really, really light. For durability, I'd say it's extremely impact

and extremely pressure resistant. So the internal frame of this camera

is, of course, metal and the back and the front plates are metal just

like the 5D family bodies. But, the top case is actually a polycarbonate reinforced fiberglass

material. Now, this is different than any material that Canon

has put out in its full frame bodies in the past, and the reason that Canon

selected to use this material is due to the WiFi and the GPS, to allow it to permit it

through the material. The durability and the design - really nice. Ergonomics

of this camera are really good, but it is slightly smaller in

physical size. So, if you can fit all four of your fingers on the camera grip of the

5D original, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III, you can still do that on this one, but

for people who have big hands, you might not and your pinky might

actually be hanging off.

I had some doubts about the top-case material which is made of polycarbonate reinforced

fiberglass, but after having gotten it, you know, in the field and actually

getting some really good use on it, it actually performs very well.

Actually, it performs, in my opinion, just as well the magnesium alloy found in the 5D

family.

Canon implemented a new sensor in the 6D and the pixel level detail of this full frame

CMOS sensor is capable of producing incredibly detailed images. I've

printed large format prints from the 6D all the way up to 40x60 inches and

the level of detail is just incredible, and I'm finding that the print quality between

the original 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III and 6D - they're pretty much indistinguishable

from each other. I was thinking there might be better quality

in terms of, you know, image quality and print quality but I'm seeing the same results. But,

just as important as image quality is, however, is the quality

of optics in the light path - you can't overlook that and previsualization.

As Ansel Adams once said, image quality is only as good as visual quality.

The Canon 6D has Canon's most powerful image processor - the DIGIC 5+ - and the Canon 6D's

DIGIC 5+ processor is 17x faster than a DIGIC 4 and 30% faster than

a DIGIC 5. The image processor in a camera is responsible for reducing

noise as higher ISO's, among other things, and the DIGIC 5+ represents the best to date,

so the introduction of the DIGIC 5+ also introduced chromatic aberration

correction based on Canon lens profiles which are embedded or added to

the memory of the in-camera memory on the 6D and the 5D Mark III. So these in-camera

profiles are there for, you know, intended to reduce chromatic aberrations

for Canon's lenses, but in real world results I haven't really seen that

much of a difference on this. So, again, the DIGIC 5+ is great, but what all this marketing

really boils down to is better noise at higher ISO's and higher ISO's.

So, one of the biggest and most important questions when researching, reviewing, or

buying a camera is image quality. For me, it's the most important question - everything

else is secondary. So, what is the image quality like on the

6D? Well, let's take a look at a few examples at actual size to get a better idea.

So, let's take a look at this image in Grand Teton National Park. I was there shooting

a sunrise, and this is one of my favorite national parks. This sunrise photograph

was taken this passed fall during the national park closure.

Now, image quality is dependent on the quality of optics in the light path - filters, lenses,

etc. So, in talking about image quality we're also talking about

optic quality. But let's take a look at a few camera specific image

quality characteristics, separate from the lens. So, let's zoom in here. I consistently

see excellent color rendition from this camera. Images that come

out of the camera are either typically clean and well saturated. I

actually find the color rendition to be identical to the 5D bodies - all the way from the original

5D to the 5D Mark III. That is to say it's excellent. And the

dynamic range of the 6D is excellent for this range of cameras. So, in

this image we're getting pretty good dynamic range between the front of the barn with the

mountain peaks. And notice the landscape just below the clouds. So, all

in all, this image looks pretty good and it looks as I remembered it.

OK, let's take a look at this image. Now, harsh light, harsh environmental conditions,

and landscapes that will blow your mind is what Death Valley is all about.

Let's take a look at this sunset photograph which also doesn't have much

post except for sensor dust. Actually, let me show you really quick what it looks like

right out of the camera. So this is the raw file, out of the camera. Again,

my post-processing work flow, in it I don't use much post outside of

analog darkroom procedures such as dodging, burning, crop, straighten, those kinds of

things, and sometimes, on some of my images, I use zero post-processing.

Therefore I rely on the camera to accurately record the color saturation as

I remember it, and I'm finding that out-of-camera image quality on the 6D is excellent. OK,

back to the adjusted image here - use your video play-head to scrub

back and forth below this video to get a better idea of the before and

after comparison. But, let's dive into the actual size and take a look at what we have

here. So the dynamic range of this image is pretty typical of how the 6D

performs. There's pretty good highlight headroom in the sky here, probably

could have been better if I'd used ISO 100. The ridge-line sharpness is also excellent

and controlled well against the sky. Again, I'm just going to reiterate that

the image quality is only as good as the lens and most Canon L lenses

are pretty good in this respect. But, for dynamic range, highlight control, and definition

of the distant mountain details, this one is looking pretty good.

The foreground of this image has wonderful detail in the plants and it

looks like snow or ice but it's actually salt, and the salt has an incredibly high-level

of detail. When printed out to 40x60 this is really impressive - the detail

here is just amazing. So, again, a lot of this is depending the

quality of optics throughout the light path, but with high quality optics, the 6D captures

detail very well and the file is ready for print without much post-processing.

Now let's take a look at a sunrise photograph in Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon National Park

is a pretty impressive landscape and I think this photograph is a

pretty good example of quality. Notice the yellow to pink in the ridge-line

in the top quadrant. The yellow to pink is a very delicate color gradient and the 6D

picks up and preserves it pretty well. Now you may not have guessed it by just

looking at this photograph, but this was captured in the fall. And if

you notice towards the center of the frame we have some yellow trees, and although a

very small detail, only noticeable on close inspection of a large

print or actual size like we're looking at here, it was captured pretty well

by the 6D sensor. And the lower right quadrant is looking pretty good too, a decent amount

of definition there between the foreground and the background, not too

muddy. So sharpness here is good and we're getting a bit of lower right

quadrant light fall off, but again now we're getting into optic quality. One of my favorite

parts of this image is the gradient in the sky - a beautiful deep

purple here in the top quadrant, fading into an orange with a narrow band

of pink, then to a blueish on the horizon, leading into the distant ridge-line. The gradient

and the colors here are pretty delicate and can actually be destroyed

with a simple one to two stops of overexposure. And moving to the right

of the side of the frame, we see that highlights have been controlled over here pretty well

as well. So, all in all this is a pretty decent image, not the best

in the world, but I think it's a good example of dynamic range, sharpness,

and just overall image quality.

So in summary, the image quality in the 6D matches that of the 5D family all the way

down to the original 5D. In other words, it's excellent but it's as you'd

expect if you are an owner of any of the cameras in the 5D family. The

DIGIC 5+ found on the 6D and 5D Mark III delivers the best high ISO noise performance found

on any of the Canon cameras and the color rendition and the dynamic

range and saturation on the 6D perform impressively.

So, Canon advertises the Canon 6D to be "completely sealed" from external contaminants, like the

5D family, like in the 5D Mark II and the 5D Mark III. In my

opinion, that's just marketing hype, and although it is very well weather-

sealed, I'm not sure if it meets the hype. To give you an example, when I was shooting

the sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge, I was shooting and I had about ten

gallons of sea water dump on top of me. A wave came over and broke and

boom there was seawater all over everything and with this lens and this camera. And I

thought that the lens and the camera were done for, but after I dried it

off and I shaked it off a little bit, actually the camera body worked fine,

the lens did as well, but the Canon 6D performed perfectly afterwards. I don't think that after

that incident a regular non-weather sealed camera would've

survived. But, on the other hand, here in Death Valley National Park where I am

right now doing this review, I actually have to clean the camera sensor once every week

or once every two weeks - it's that bad. Much of my genuine excitement

about being in the natural world with a camera has to do with close

moderation of gear and carrying as little as I possibly can. The Canon 6D fits into

that ultralight category and not too many full frame cameras do, in fact, it's

one of the only ones on the market as of this review. So, it definitely

fits into that special category of ultralight full frame cameras and you still get that

image quality that is so essential.

Probably the

biggest feature difference between the Canon 6D and the 5D Mark III is the auto-focus and

I often like to say that the auto-focus is the Canon 6D's

worst and best feature. There was some friction with the Canon 5D Mark II

when it was released because it had a nine point auto-focus system. Contrast that against

the Canon 5D Mark III sixty-one auto-focus system. The Canon 6D

has eleven. So the Canon 6D has the lowest light auto-focus performance of

any camera Canon has introduced to date and maybe any other still camera in this class

of cameras on the market. So, what does this mean? Well, if you shoot in

low-light or if you shoot with ND filters on the front, or anywhere where

it's difficult for the auto-focus to detect contrast between edges then this is definitely

one of the biggest features that you can get on the 6D.

OK, so to summarize: if you are shooting sports or fast action for more than 80 percent of

your images this camera might not cut it with its simple AF system

and its low number of AF points. But, if you shoot sunsets or sunrises or

if you shoot anything in low light this camera is currently the king of low light auto-focus

performance, and it is, at the moment, unparalleled. This is a huge win

for me personally as I often use ND filters and an ND filter is designed

to stop light down and if you hold it up to the light it's completely black, which means

that it's really hard to compose images, but it's even harder to manually

focus. Typically auto-focus stops working when you reduce the stops

to a certain amount, whereas with this camera I can typically auto-focus even with the darkest

ND filters on the front of the lens. I can even shoot moonlight and

have it accurately obtain a lock in the foreground.

So the Canon 6D is Canon's first camera that they've implemented an integrated GPS on and

for commercial photographers, wedding photographers, event

shooters, this feature may not be so important, but for travel, landscape,

and wildlife photographers, or any other kind of photography where accurate location based

information is useful, this feature is going to be huge. It has a secondary

benefit of not just being able to tell you exactly where you are when

you took the photograph, but it also sets the date and time. Remember in those days

when you had to actually change the time zone when you moved from one place

to another? You never have to do that ever again. Or remember the days