Review: Canon EOS 6D full-frame DSLR

Finally, Canon produces a full-frame camera that captures great colors and detailed shots without hurting your arm or giving you massive triceps! Wondering what I'm talking about? Introducing the lightest full-frame DSLR equipped with a 20.2 megapixel CMOS sensor with precision 11-point AF system and offering built-in Wi-Fi and GPS support. Personally, I'd have happily swapped the GPS and Wi-Fi for more autofocus points.

Canon EOS 6D full-frame DSLR

We procured an EOS 6D with a EF 24-70 f4L IS USM lens for a few months to be tested. It has a newly-designed 20.2 megapixel sensor delivering slightly lower resolution than the 22.3 Megapixel EOS 5D Mark III, and a wide and useful ISO range of 50-102400. For videos, the 6D, like all high-end Canon DSLRs including the 60D and 5D Mark III, can shoot 1080p HD video at 30, 25 and 24fps. As an automobile & travel photographer, most of our shoots happen under natural light. Colours appear very punchy. I performed few tests on a sunny, largely cloud-free day, and the EOS 6D filled the frame with a spectrum of bright, realistic colours. The skies were a rich blue, the colour of the car delicious. Our 15th anniversary issue certainly does look a lot better, brighter and much more crisp with a number of stories shot on the EOS 6D.

The Porsche Hybrid in the Rann of Kutch

In automobile photography, a lot depends on action shots. That's why having a camera with higher continuous shooting capabilities is a big plus.  The 6D offers 4.5fps on both RAW and JPEG images, which, I think could have been better. Still, the 6D definitely did a fabulous job in capturing those high-drama, high-speed action shots of Rishaad driving through the salt mountains at Rann of Kutch, and also when he tried cornering on the new Duke 390 under really low light situations during a night shoot in Mumbai.

The 6D has great features like the GPS system, which allows you to tag images with location data as well as keeping a tracklog that you can use to plot your route on a map later. The built-in Wi-Fi allows the wireless transfer of images to a device or directly to the internet, as well letting you wirelessly control the camera using either a computer or smartphone. The 6D is the perfect camera with the perfect the set of features for our long travel/drive stories like the Independence Quattro Drive, where we needed to tag every photo along the journey and quickly transfer and update them on the Overdrive website.

With the EOS 6D, Canon has made a very successful attempt in building a full-frame sensor camera in a small compact body. Especially for travel/outdoor photographers for whom the gear has to be minimalistic to cut out extra weight, the 6D is the just the ticket. The most difficult part of this camera will be… parting with this camera when it goes back to Canon.