Canon 6D - Hands On Impressions

The following review was written by a listener in Germany. He had some hands on time with the camera at Photokina. Below are some of his initial impressions.

Thanks, Sebastian.
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Hi Jimmy,

With red, swollen feet and a big smile on my face I retuned form my two day trip to Photokina. Usually I'm not that kind of person that will endlessly browsing catalogs or spend days at the photo section of mediamarkt (German version of compUSA etc) but Photokina is something different. I had to go.

One of the main attractions at Photokina is the Canon 6D. In order to play with it for just a brief moment, I had to wait for ages. The camera is surprisingly small and light. I have rather small hands and even for me, the 6D is a bit too small. When having a bigger lens attached, the camera tends to feel unbalanced. I guess a battery grip is necessary for people with bigger hands like me.

The 6D has a beautiful 3 inch (1M pixel) display. I is sharp and offers enough contrast to allow it to be seen well in bright lighting conditions (as it was at the fair).

I usually shoot with Pentax, but even for someone not familiar with the usual Canon menu, the menu was clean and I had no problem navigating though it.

The camera comes with a silent mode but even without this option switched on, the 6D is extremely quiet. I imagine it perfect for weddings... 

Highly advertised are the two "extras" not seen so far included in a DSLR. I am talking about the built in GPS and WiFi. For the GPS there are a few options. You can switch it on permanently so it is always running, in intervals of a few minutes at a time, or you can even set it so that it only comes on and looks for a signal when you press the shutter release. the first option will really reduce your battery time, and I can see that a battery grip would really help here. The last option saves the most in battery time.

The built in WiFi allows you to save your photos on distance devices via WiFi, and also control your camera with you iPad or other tablet device via the free app that you can download. 

Additionally the user will be able to upload the photos onto the new project1709 cloud solution by Cannon (see below).

Except for a small portion on the top -where the GPS sensor is located- the camera is made of magnesium-alloy (with plastic cover).

  

The camera has a ISO range form 100 to 25,600, easily exceeding the Nikon D600 with "only" 6,400

Canon will charge about 2000€ (2100US$ ?) when they release it this fall. 

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Canon just started "Project1709" (http://www.project1709.com) a online photo storage option. Official release is 1st of January 2013. uUtil then it is in the beta test. For now the service is free and has unlimited storage. How much Canon will charge once the service is started officially is not clear yet, neither what exactly it will be able to do. So far you can upload photos and organize them by date of capture, upload date, or assign tags, working like folders. For now it is only possible to share via facebook (a cool feature is the possibility to revoke the "share on facebook" within the project1709 website) Canon is relying on the costumer (us) to suggest more features. 

Best regards,

Sebastian Walbe