It has been some time since my last update, so I would like to share some quirks that I had found with the R6
1) There is a
very major issue with Tamron G2 lenses despite assurances from Tamron that their lenses are compatible with the R5/R6. There is a setting called "Display off" in Settings>2>Power Saving>Display off. This value here is very crucial if you are using G2 lenses (15-30 G2, 24-70 G2, 70-200 G2, 150-600 G2 etc). If you let it idle past the time stated here,
you will destroy the lens's AF motor the next time you press the shutter button. There will be a squeaking sound and sooner or later the AF will stop responding. When you press the shutter button, you will see/hear that the AF motor is literally hammering from MFD to infinity continuously. I had already sent my lens to the local service center and although I got my lens back after a motor replacement, the issue still persist. You can find this widespread issue on youtube:
Interestingly enough, if you manually trigger "Display off" using a button, this issue won't occur. It is only when you let the camera switch off the display by itself. I had flagged out this issue to the previous (they were still the distro back then) local distributor "Shiriro" and they stopped responding to me altogether after some time.
2) I had been using a Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 PZD lens for some time whenever I go out with my kids due to the versatility of the lens. If you notice, this is an APS-C lens so I had to enable crop mode in the body. Doing this will sacrifice the ISO performance and megapixel but still, I had shot about 3000+ photos with this combination so far and it's doing pretty well except for some stuff. Before that, let me share with you some photos and the genre I tested on (apart from my kids):
Flowers (both 1/1250s, f/6.3, ISO 640):
"Landscapes" (1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 12800):
Mammals (1/400s, f/6.3, ISO 12800):
Reptiles (1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 12800):
Birds (1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 1600):
You can see that there are a couple of ISO 12800 shots and they look fine to me. The R6's ISO performance is that good hence even with crop mode, ISO 12800 is still usable. There are however, 2 minor issues:
- The resolution of the files are now 3408*2272. If you are going to submit the photos for competition, some competitions require a minimum of 4000px on the wide side (ILPOTY comes to mind). Thankfully, these competitions are far and between.
- I had encountered 2 instances where the Tamron simply refuses to start focusing until I manually give the focusing ring a turn. Thankfully, this occurs just twice in over 3000 shots. I had encountered this alot more when R6's firmware was in it's infancy but never had this issue after I updated the firmware until now. I had shot about 6000 shots with my Sigma 50mm f/1.8 ART and didn't have this issue.
Apart from that, everything works as per normal. Maybe eye AF is a little sluggish although I'm unsure if that is due to the lens. For big subjects like the jaguar, tracking isn't an issue. It struggled a little when tracking the chameleon's eyes; only locking on for 2 to 3 seconds at a time. In the worst case scenario like the magpie robin where there is backlight in addition to the small eyes, it only managed to lock on the eyes for split seconds. Hence I'm not really sure if the R6 is doing the tracking/algo processing before or after the cropping. Initial eye detection is also non-existent for the chameleon and magpie; I had to switch to spot focus to get the eyes detected.
For the flowers, what you really want is for the af to lock on the pollens or center. While it drew a AF box around the flower, it seems insistent on focusing on the petals instead. I had to switch to spot focusing to get it in focus.
I will be getting a Raynox 150 (that will give me 1.31:1 maximum magnification with the 18-270 PZD, working distance of 20.3cm for those interested in the numbers) and Raynox 250 (2.23:1 MM, WD of 12.2cm) soon and hopefully that will give me more unique angles to try the 18-270mm with the R6
3) There is this well known setting called "Subject to detect: People/Animals/No priority" that isn't really intuitive. You would had thought that it will find all the eyes, regardless of people or animals and this setting simply sets the priority but no; if you set to "people" or "no priority", it will never find the animal's eyes. You have to set to "animal" in order to detect an animal's eyes. Interestingly, "animal" also detects human's eyes though at a lower success rate than "people".
4) The manual focus guide (NOT peaking) is a godsend for manual lenses. It's super easy to manual focus now. Never liked peaking.
5) There are some stuff that I wished was better implemented in the R6. Like,
- it would be great if there are shadow boxes to show which eyes are detected so I can be sure it will switch to that's person's eyes eventually instead of just toggling between the left and right eye of a single person in a group photo.
- Custom mode could had gone up to C10 in software, then a setting to import whatever mode into the physical C1 to C3 button... just like how Ricoh did it in their GR3. That would be super helpful.
- When using live view, it would be great if the eye sensor is automatically disabled. If not whenever your finger accidentally hovers over the viewfinder, the screen switches off which doesn't make sense if you are using live view to shoot.