ON TRIAL CANON EOS M6 MARK II

While a lot of attention is being focused on its EOS R mirrorless camera system, Canon has been quietly improving the APS-C EOS M line-up and the Mark II upgrade of the M6 is definitely the pick of the litter… especially as it packs a lot of the EOS 90D’s punch, but in a much smaller and lighter body.

There probably isn’t a better comparison of the relative merits of the DSLR and mirrorless camera configurations than Canon’s EOS 90D and EOS M6 Mark II. The pair was launched together and share the same digital ‘powerplant’ in terms of sensor and processor. Consequently, they share a lot of similar features and specifications but, boy, are they different cameras everywhere else!

Most obviously, it’s all about the size and weight because the EOS 90D isn’t exactly the most compact mid-range APS-C format DSLR around, and the EOS M6 Mark II is among the more compact of the mid-range APS-C mirrorless cameras. The numbers tell the story – 140.7 x 104.8 x 76.8 mm for the EOS 90D body (WxHxD) versus 119.6 x 70.0 x 49.2 mm for the EOS M6 II and, perhaps even more tellingly, 702g ready to roll versus 408g. And then there’s the little matter of the size differences between comparable EF-S and EF-M lenses.

Despite its small size, Canon has still managed to give the

M6 II a tilt-adjustable monitor screen, a built-in flash and a largely dial-based control layout, but…

The major omission is a built-in

EVF which is becoming much more of a harder sell these days. Canon’s solution is to throw in the accessory EVF-DC2 unit that couples to the camera via the

Powered by the same sensor and processor as the EOS 90D, Canon’s APS-C mirrorless flagship packs quite a punch, combined with the appeal of being a much more compact and lighter camera.

up to 99 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Curiously, though, the M6 II doesn’t have a multiple exposure facility.

On the corrective side, it gets Canon’s Auto Lighting Optimiser and Highlight Tone Priority processing functions (for contrast control and dynamic range expansion respectively, the latter with an additional Enhanced setting), noise reduction for both long exposures and high

ISO settings, automatic flicker detection and correction, and lens corrections for vignetting, distortion, chromatic aberrations and diffraction. Alternatively, the Digital Lens Optimiser setting corrects for everything in one hit (including the effects of the optical low-pass filter), but requires that specific data for each lens to be downloaded to the camera.

TAKING CONTROL

As noted earlier, autofocusing is via Canon’s Dual Pixel

CMOS AF arrangement on the imaging sensor which enables phase-difference detection measurements. The 5,481 manually selection positions divide into 143 automatically selected points with the choice of 1-Point, Spot and Zone area modes. There’s face and eye detection with auto tracking (which Canon calls