Canon EOS R6 for Sports Photography - First impressions

Just over a week ago, I was lucky enough to pick up a brand new Canon EOS R6. Surprisingly enough, although I have been shooting for many years, this is actually the first time that I have ever purchased a brand new camera body. Prior to this moment I’ve owned the following selection of second-hand bodies: Canon 20D, Canon 7D, Canon 5Dmk3 (my primary body prior to purchasing the R6).

I had been eyeing off the R6 for quite some time. It appealed for a number of reasons:

1) Canon is clearly committed to a move to mirrorless, and the RF glass that goes with mirrorless bodies is getting better and better with each lens that they release. I hadn’t made the jump with the EOS-R or the EOS-RP because they just weren’t up-to-scratch for sports photography, but the R6 is a different beast altogether.

2) The idea of a more compact, slightly lighter body definitely has appeal, especially on longer shooting days where I need to be mobile along a spread out event course.

3) The specs on the R6 are just ideal for shooting sports. 14 fps mechanical shutter, 20 fps electronic shutter, 20 megapixel sensor shared with the 1DX mark III, and the autofocus performance that comes with a mirrorless system. I had considered leaping to the R5, but the extra megapixels and 8k video just aren’t something that I need for shooting sports.

4) My 5Dmk3 body has been a workhorse, but it was getting a bit long in the tooth. It has 200k+ shutter actuations on it, and everything was just getting a bit tired. The top control wheel would sometimes jump settings, the main shutter release had got quite spongy, and it had also developed an annoying spot on the sensor. I had been using my 7D as a spare body, but its low-light performance is, to be honest, horrendous, which made it unusable for early morning events.

After hesitating for some weeks, I pulled the trigger and picked up an R6 body and the RF-EF adaptor (basic version, not the control ring version because there aren’t any in the country at the time of writing!) so that I could still use my existing collection of EF glass before I transition to RF glass.

Setting the R6 up for sports photography

Straight out of the box, the R6 would probably do a killer job for many sports photography situations, but there are definitely some things you’ll want to optimise to take the camera to another level.

  • Back-button focus. By default the R6 ships with the shutter button controlling “autofocus start”, “metering start” and shutter release. I’ve shot with back-button focus for many years, so the first thing I did was change the shutter button to just “metering start” and “shutter release”, and changed the AF-on button to “AF-start” and “metering start”. For those of you that don’t know what back-button focus is, there are some great YouTube explanations. In short, with one button it means you can effectively switch between AF one-shot and AF servo modes without ever touching a menu item again.

  • AF modes. The Eye-AF on the R6 is phenomenal (more about that below), but it isn’t appropriate for many sports, particularly when the athletes are wearing helmets. In those situations, I want to be able to rely on single-point AF (or maybe a cross-type AF cluster). You don’t need to go into the quick menu to change between focus modes, it can all be done by assigning “Eye AF” to the “*” button on the back of the camera. That means when you press “*” Eye AF will be activated and will try to track the subject, but if you want to use single-point AF you just use the usual back button focus “AF-on”. I didn’t realise this was possible at first, but when I realised it could be done it completely changed the R6 shooting experience.

  • Other than that, it is just the usual settings (full burst shutter release, AF servo etc.). I use AF scenario 1 for most situations, and will occasionally use scenario 4 when I’ve got very fast moving subjects.

First impressions of the R6 as a sports photography camera

Two days after I receive the R6, the World Surf League rolled into town for the Ripcurl Narrabeen classic. Having a whole selection of world-class surfers on my doorstep was too much of a good opportunity to pass up.

I took my R6, and trusty Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 down to the beach and found a spot in amongst the 3000 other spectators. It was a pretty overcast and gloomy day, and the break was a fair way out (and of course and hadn’t brought my 1.4x teleconverter) but I got the R6 set up and started firing away……

What I’m going to say here probably won’t surprise anyone. The R6 is exceptional. The autofocus is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I tested the eye-human AF and even for surfing where the subject is at the extreme end of a telephoto lens it did a phenomenal job of picking up the subject and tracking it across the wave. In maybe 1 out of 10 shots in a burst you can see that it accidentally picked up the face of the wave rather than the surfer, but in general it was tack sharp. I’d say that is still far better than using a single AF point in a burst, where there is every chance that I could accidentally place the AF point into the wave at some point.

One thing I’ll be interested to test is how the AF performs when you chuck on a teleconverter. The 1.4x TC means my 150-600 has a max aperture of f/8.0, which on my 5Dmk3 reduced it to a single AF point. My understanding is that the R6 should maintain about 80% of the AF points down to f/11, which would be a massive improvement.

Main take-aways

I’ve only been able to put the R6 through it's paces for a few hours, but this is what I’ve garnered so far

1) The AF is just exceptional. There are so many “keepers” in amongst shots where I know my 5Dmk3 would have been hunting for focus. The Eye AF has limitations with some sports, but for many it will be amazing. Where you can’t use Eye AF, the single point AF tracking is amazing too.

2) The 12fps mechanical shutter is amazing, and is surprisingly quiet compared to the 5D series. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it feels like more of a dull “thud” rather than the loud click of the 5D series.

3) You need to have a bit of discipline with the shutter. It is way too easy to fire off a burst of 15-20 shots. I had a lot of photos to cull through from the surfing, but on the other hand I was glad to have that many shots to choose from. For my large events we’re usually capturing each competitor in one frame, so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

4) The EVF takes a little while to get used to, but after a while I really came to love the exposure simulation, particularly when I’m shooting in full manual mode.

5) If you have larger hands like me, you’ll probably want to invest in a grip. The official Canon grip is expensive (around $500!), but there aren’t any third-party options available at the moment. I love the way the R6 feels in my hands, but after a couple of hours I really found myself wishing that I had somewhere to rest the bottom of my hand/pinkie finger. With some events I’m shooting constantly for 3-4 hours, so comfort is essential. For shooting vertical sports, the grip will be absolutely essential anyway, so investing in one was a no-brainer for me.

6) You should never be able to exceed the buffer. The buffer when shooting in RAW at 12fps mechanical to two UHS-II SD cards is infinite….it will keep shooting until you fill the cards. At 20fps electronic shutter, you have to be shooting continuously for 9 seconds (180 shots) to saturate the buffer. I can’t imagine any situation where you would need to do that.

7) A 20 megapixel sensor is more than enough for most situations. The photos above have been cropped a fair bit and still look great at 100% on the screen. The 45mp sensor on the R5 would be amazing for landscapes and portraiture, but for high-volume sports photography I’ll take the 20mp sensor all day. It makes for manageable file sizes (particularly if you shoot in cRAW) and you don’t need gigantic amounts of storage for a full day of shooting.

Still to be determined

1) Battery life. By all accounts the R6 is a bit hungry on batteries due to the EVF and the back LCD. I didn’t shoot for long enough to see how the battery performed. On my 5Dmk3 with a grip and two batteries, I can shoot roughly 1200 shots before needing to change them over. I’m not expecting to see anywhere near that on the R6. If I can get 800 shots with a grip and two batteries (which are still on backorder) I’ll still be happy.

2) Low-light performance. Just from shooting some shots around the apartment I can tell the low-light performance is going to be a huge jump up from my 5Dmk3. I shot a bunch of shots at ISO 12400, and there was no noticeable noise. I can’t wait to give this thing a run in the early hours at a triathlon or trail run.

3) Electronic shutter. The 20fps on the electronic shutter sounds appealing for sport, but for many of my sports where the subject is moving horizontally or diagonally through the frame, rolling shutter will be an issue. I also struggle to get my head around the lack of any sound or tactile feedback when you’re shooting with the electronic shutter…..the only way you know the camera is firing off shots is the flickering box around the outside of the EVF. I may occasionally use the electronic shutter to get a cool sequence of shots, but I think in the vast majority of situations the 12fps mechanical shutter will be more than adequate.