Three days ago, I received my new camera, the Canon EOS 6D. When it had been announced in September for Photokina, I grabbed the opportunity to go there and get a first-hand impression of that camera. Having only made the switch from analog to digital photography in 2008, I had never really embraced the smaller sensor of the EOS 30D (my first digital camera, bought used) and the EOS 60D. I was quite happy with the 60D, yet I never bought any EF-S lenses and so far never bought a lens with a focal length of less than 20mm. Basically, the APS-C sensor for me was just a temporary solution while I was waiting for a “full-frame” camera, i.e. a camera with a 35mm sensor that would be available for a reasonable price. The 6D seems to be quite nice for my purposes, and in fact better suited than the 5D Mark III, though the latter is definitely the better camera in many respects.

Usually, I would wait for a while rather than buy a new camera as soon as it becomes available. However, I am planning to go (again) on a trip to New Zealand and, of course, want to take the new camera along. So it’s time to get going and use the new camera. My first photos today are a sequence of Paderborn Cathedral at different ISO settings. The one shown here was taken at ISO 3200 with an EF 50mm f/1.4 USM at 1/6 second and f/5.6. It has been taken as JPEG in camera (apart from Canon’s own Digital Photo Professional software no other software can currently convert the RAW files of this camera) with standard settings, then imported into Apple Aperture with that software’s standard settings and published to Flickr.

I don’t know what you expect from a camera like this; but to my eye, this image is very well usable. Of course, I would usually try to keep ISO values lower than in this shot; but it’s good to know what the results look like in case you need those high values. Feel free to take a look at the image in full size along with the other images of this sequence in my Flickr album Test Canon EOS 6D.