MAKING MOVIES
If you’re thinking about getting serious about shooting video with a Canon D-SLR then head straight over to the EOS 5D Mark IV because the 6D Mark II isn’t the camera for you. It’s much, much better than its predecessor because it has the ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’, an adjustable monitor screen with touch controls, built-in stereo microphones, electronic image stabilisation and Full HD recording at 50 fps (PAL standard), but there are many key omissions too. At the top of this list is 4K video (although you can make time-lapse clips in 4K), but also absent are an uncompressed HDMI output, a headphones connection, time coding, format and compression regime choices (which, curiously, the original 6D did have), zebra patterns, a focus peaking display and, of course, dual memory card slots.
If you only want to dabble with video-making then the 6D II does a reasonable-enough job with the main plus points being the autofocusing performance, and the extensive touchscreen controllability.
Full HD video can be recorded at either 50 or 25 fps, but there’s no 24 fps ‘cinematic’ option and you’re stuck with MP4 files using the IPB compression regime. The NTSC speeds are available. A stereo audio input is provided and sound levels can be adjusted manually, plus there is both a wind-cut filter and an attenuator (which automatically reduces levels to avoid distortion). The electronic image stabilisation gives five-axis correction, but also results in a crop to either side of the image and a slight loss of sharpness.
Unlike the intervalometer for shooting stills, which is pegged to 99 frames, the time-lapse movie mode allows for sequences of up to 3600 frames in the 4K resolution of 3840x2160 pixels with Motion JPEG compression or at 1920x1080 pixels with ALL-I intraframe compression. Playback is at 25 fps. There’s also an HDR Movie mode which gives an extended dynamic range (by simultaneously recording brighter and darker frames at 50 fps into clips which are replayed at 25 fps) and a ‘Video Snapshot’ mode which records short clips of two, four or eight seconds that are subsequently joined together to create a single movie.
Continuous AF operation – which Canon calls ‘Movie Servo AF’ here – is available with both face recognition and subject tracking, the latter again fine-tuneable for sensitivity. The focus transition speed can also be adjusted over ten steps from slow to fast. Manual focus assist is via a magnified image only. Exposure control can be either fully automatic – including with auto scene mode selection – or fully manual. Exposure compensation can be applied while shooting. Most of the functions for still photography are also available when shooting video, including the ‘Picture Style’ presets, the lens corrections for vignetting and chromatic aberration, the grid guides and the ‘Auto Lighting Optimiser’ and ‘Highlight Tone Priority’ processing.
There’s certainly enough here for anybody who is just starting to explore video-making or who wants to make the occasional clip to supplement their still photography, but just about any mirrorless camera (and many D-SLRs) offer a whole lot more and, consequently, the capacity to advance should you ‘get the bug’.