Canon EOS 6D EF24-105mm is STM Kit Black

I'll keep this review simple as I'm not an advanced professional but more of a serious enthusiast at this point. The feel and build of this camera is top notch; it feels like a brick in the hands and handles nicely. The 24-105 lens is very tight and also smooth but I do have to say after using it for a couple of weeks it does now creep when held straight down.Wow on the low light capabilities of this thing! I can push it up to 10,000 iso and get images as clean if not cleaner than on my 40d at 1,600. Obviously the crop factor is gone but what some may not know is that you get at least a full stop more bokeh using the same aperture lens. f4 is more like 2.8 on a full frame so you have more creative room to work with blur wise. Another thing that I have learned is that the high iso capabilities of this camera are not only handy in low light but for landscape shooting at higher apertures without a tripod; which is something that I often shoot. I can bump up my aperture to f16 and still easily hand hold shots with no blur in average lighting with a higher iso. I don't see huge differences in sharpness with this camera and lens combination in bright scenes compared to my 40d with the 17-55 lens but the dynamic range is better and the colors are very vibrant and true. The luminosity of the images is also better. Again not huge differences but enough to make that extra difference that makes me feel like the camera is actually capturing how my eye saw it. I often felt with my 40d that the images were almost there but not quite. The auto focus is primitive compared to the 5dMK3 but works extremely well in low light and can pick up focus in very dim scenes near darkness. When I put my 85 1.8 prime on this thing I can literally shoot in the dark hand held with only ambient window light or auto focus on a single star. At 10,000 iso with the same lens I am picking up roughly 10 times the light as my 40d which means I can shoot stars at f1.8 with only a half a second shutter time. Bumping up the iso to 25,000 does start to introduce a bit of noticeable noise but the images are still useable which I find amazing. The biggest lack I constantly found with my 40d was the iso limit and need for more light sensitivity. You can truly shoot indoors with no flash with a 1.8 lens at moderate iso and even with the 24-105 when you bump the iso way up.The wifi is extremely handy to review and post pictures to facebook but it is a bit slow. I use the wifi a lot for previewing my images and it's nice to be able to delete the ones from your camera you don't want right from your phone or tablet, very cool feature.Complaints; no built in flash to control speedlights which does kinda suck. But again, if you want a 5d3 go pay an extra 1,700 bucks. The lens creep is a little annoying but it is an L lens with weather resistance and an o ring where the barrel slides so it won't be a dust pump like the famed 17-55 was on my 40d. Overall the 24-105 is a very nice lens with true L quality build but just be prepared for it to break in a little. The limit of 1/4000 shutter isn't a big issue for me since I've rarely shot speeds higher than this on my 40d nor have ever really needed the 6 frames per second vs. the 4.5 this one shoots. Having a built in flash to control my speedlight would have been very nice but considering there is a wifi and gps unit under the roof is a reasonable trade off as the gps is something I have not yet used but anticipate it being very useful for those remote landscape shoots I will be doing. I have read a lot of complaints about the maximum 180 flash sync speed being a downfall, but lets face it, when you end up using high speed sync the shutter speed are generally above 250 anyway and don't think it's that much of a difference to split hairs over. You have to remember that you are getting the same IQ quality as the much more expensive 5dmk3, maybe even slightly better high iso performance and low light focusing, wifi AND gps. If you usually shoot indy cars or close up touch downs that need that extra fancy, high speed focusing system then money is probably not an issue for you anyway so go get the 5d instead. For a poor guy like myself who is trying to break into the pro field and wants top notch IQ and low light performance this camera is plain awesome for the price. And for those complaining about the 97 percent view in the view finder get real, if anything it helps because if you didn't give yourself quite enough room composing to fit in the top of your kids baseball cap you will have that tiny bit extra when you see it on screen.Bottom line is you get full frame IQ and very high iso capabilities which simple expand the possibilities of what you can shoot. With my 40d shooting an indoor wedding with my 85 1.8 I was still left quite unsatisfied with the blur and grain of the images. With this camera you can shoot the highest quality images with no flash with a prime lens in doors with ambient light. Yeah you will see some faint noise begin to show up at 10,000 iso but not much which is very impressive. I get more noise on my 40d at 800 iso than this on 10,000 At this iso with a large aperture lens you will pick up more light hand held than your eyes can even pick up in very dim scenes. I get very crisp and clean images with accurate and saturated colors shooting my son in a room with no flash and only two 60 watt bulbs illuminating the whole room. I find myself going wow quite often with a big smile on my face when I go back and look at the images I have shot of my son indoors where this camera literally leaves my 40d on the shelf collecting dust.If you're still on the fence ask yourself what you shoot often. If you shoot weddings or your kids birthday party with no flash or landscapes than I would say this thing is a game changer going from a cropped camera, especially in low light. The extra blur you get at the same aperture is also nice as I often find 1.8 on my prime to be almost too narrow to get focused shots all the time from moving people. Bumping it up to 2.8 or so I still get many times more light sensitivity than my 40d considering I can boost the iso as high as 10,000 without hesitation, or even higher if you need it with a little extra grain. Also that little bit extra dynamic range this full frame sensor provides coupled with vivid and true color reproduction just gives the images that extra edge that can make the difference between a good image and a professional looking image. The IQ difference once you go above 800 iso compared to a crop camera begin to become very big and this is where the full frame really comes into its element and shines, quite literally. Full frame opens up a whole new field of low light and hand held high aperture landscape shooting.UPDATE:Another BIG thing I am noticing is how much you can recover dim or bright photos in Bridge or Lightroom. It is amazing to see what looks like a photo lost in darkness or blown in brightness and drag the exposure slider back to make it perfect. There is more than what first meets the eye to the full frame capabilities. Again an area where this camera blows my 40d's doors off.

I now have used the camera for the past 2 years. As I mention in my initial review, I wasn't getting good results consistently initially and mostly that was my fault and lack of knowledge. After spending some time educating myself and with now a few thousands pictures later I upgraded the start rating to 5.I see really no fault with this camera anymore, it delivers great images when used on the proper settings.It is billed as an entry level full frame and is priced as such. However, for a serious hobbyist, this is such an outstanding camera. I'm quite happy with this purchase and would definitely recommend it for anyone looking at a fantastic camera and not ready to drop $3K or more.**Initial review**I have never written a review for any product, but I liked this camera enough to take the time to write one.A little background and disclosures, I have had this camera since december 6th 2013, so nearly 2 month in use and nearly a 3000 pictures taken. I come from two prior canon bodies, the XS for 4 years and the T4i for one year.It took me a long time to decide between the Nikon D610, the sony A7 and this one. I finally when with this camera mostly because of my prior lenses and flash I had for my other canons, and I don't claim to compare this one to the two others. I read plenty of reviews comparing all three and for those who are looking for a comparison here you might as well google more professional reviews than mine.The bottom line for me after reading all the reviews was that these were great cameras producing great images, therefore, since I had already accessories, I went with Canon.Concerning my needs and why the need to upgrade from the T4i to this one was low light shooting indoors of my one year old. I was very unsatisfied with the low light capabilities of the T4i and the iso at 1600 looked too noisy for me. Otherwise, it was a great camera that served me well.Now, to the camera.Since I said low light was an issue for me, I took the camera and immediately snapped picture of my living room with no flash. It was dark enough and the auto iso went to 12800. I thought, Ok, it will probably be terrible but let's try. When I looked on my 27" screen at the result I was surprised. The picture was noisy sure but it was comparable to the results I got from my T4i at 1600 iso.So from there I started expecting great things from this camera and therefore I was disappointed rather quickly.I started using the kit lens which is an L lens and theoretically should be very good, but I found my 50 mm 1.4 produced way nicer images indoors. Outdoors, the 24-105 mm produced great images and proves obviously more versatile, I guess it's unfair to compare both these lenses since the 50 mm 1.4 is such a great lens anyways. But, in my mind, I thought an L lens should be way better than a cheap 50 mm that I got on amazon for $290.Now, the wifi and GPS.I have tried using the GPS, and I'm sure it can be helpful, but after I saw it draining my battery in one day while on standby, I just turned it off and decided to turn it on only when needed (like when traveling). The problem with this is that I went to DC took nearly a thousand pictures and forgot that it was off. Therefore, no geotagging for the whole trip (Granted, I can add that info later since I know where the pics were taken, but you get catch my drift). So I don't like how the GPS stays on when your turn off the camera, this really limits battery life. When turned off, my battery lasts for days.The Wifi is arguable more useful, and the iPhone app is quite easy to use. However, I have had problems connecting to it using the camera as a router. It proved a little bit finicky where I would find it in the wireless networks but then it would disappear just when I connected to it. Weird, I'm probably doing something wrong here. Otherwise, when I connect the camera to my home network, My iPhone finds it and takes pictures and everything, no problems.I have not used it much though and I still need to find a smoother way to use it to automatically import my pictures into iPhoto. Currently, when it imports them it puts each picture in a new event, creating mayhem in my library. I have tried the eyefi card before on my T4i and it imported automatically with very little effort on my part and it kept my library well organized. Again, this is software issue but after tinkering with it for a while I couldn't solve that problem so for now I just pop my SD into my IMac, it's faster anyways.HandlingThe camera is quite large compared to my two previous bodies, so for me I felt this is the heaviest camera I have ever used. So I know how this is advertised as the smallest full frame DSLR in the world, but to me, and many people like me, we won't get to feel this way because we are coming from the opposite direction, from cropped sensors and point and shoot. However, despite it being large (again all is relative in this world) it didn't bother me much even when I have my Speedlite 430 EX II, as long as I don't carry it around my neck for a while. It's heavy enough that I actually carry it on my hand and in my bag most of the time as opposed to the XS or T4i where I could keep them for an hour or two with no problems around my neck. So for people looking at buying a small therefore light to travel camera, you need to realize that it is still a heavy camera, especially with the 24-105 mm attached to it! When I put the 50 mm on, it actually is way lighter and more friendly to my neck, but then you lose on versatility.The buttons, dials, wheel are easy to use and self explanatory. Since I am not a pro photographer, I can't really comment on what's missing and how it affects workflow, for me, it works quite well and is ergonomic enough.Picture qualityThat's why you get a large sensor right? I was disappointed initially because I didn't get the mind blowing images right off the bat. This is when I realized that this camera needs more knowledge to make a good picture than before. I admit I used the auto modes on my other cameras, and on this one I decided to use it mostly manual and aperture priority. So getting all the settings, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, iso etc, right is very important. When I get them right, I get outstanding pictures. However, I feel that there is a learning curve and obviously this camera can deliver great quality, I just need to work harder to get them from it.Now, the best part about this camera is the low light performance. I now routinely push the ISO to 1600, and I know my images will still be sharp and well exposed. The images are very good up till 10 000 iso, and some say usable at 12800. I have not tried 25600, but I bet they won't be that great. So I am very happy with that part, especially that most of the time I am taking pictures of my kid running around the house where lighting is not that great. Paired with my speedlite 430, I produce great images. (remember to bounce the flash of a wall to avoid the harsh shadows)Autofocus.Lot's of talk about the lack of points. But I came from the T4i, so it was still an upgrade for me. Since I use the camera in aperture priority most of the time, I also use the center point for focus 99% of the time. This works very well for still subjects. However, a one year old is rarely still and this is where my 24-105 mm with a max aperture of 4 fails sometimes miserably. When I pair it with my 50 mm, I get more consistent results of my running kid, but it still takes some effort to do so. I was expecting a little bit more forgiveness from the camera. Apparently I need to work more on getting a faster shutter rate, which means pushing my ISO higher which I don't really like to do even if the results are still outstanding.I have not tried the 5D mark III but now I'm curious.I will probably update this review at a later time when I figured out more of how to get more consistent results from this camera.Since I still feel that I didn't get everything that I wanted (maybe because of my own ignorance of how to use it) I gave it a 4 star review. This might change in the future.The bottom line is this is a great camera than can produce great images, but it needs some serious effort on the photographer's part (which I guess is normal)