Lessons
Class Introduction
09:14 2Photo Basics
04:00 3Basic Camera Controls
04:36 4Mode Dial
24:19 5Top Of Camera
21:42 6Viewfinder Display
09:18 7Live View Menu
08:16 8Movie Mode Menu
03:03Back of Camera Buttons
04:37 10Quick Menu
22:00 11Playback Menu
08:58 12Left & Right Sides Of Camera
04:39 13Bottom & Front Of Camera
06:28 14Lens Options
08:28 15Menu Functions Overview
22:13 16Picture Style Menu
05:23 17Multiple Exposure & HDR Menu
04:53 18Image Quality Menus
06:47 19Live View Shooting Menu
02:23 20Movie Shooting Menu
15:30 21Playback Menu
06:53 22Set Up Menu
15:07 23Viewfinder Display Menu
02:35 24GPS Settings Menu
04:36 25Touch Control Menu
03:38 26Custom Shooting Mode
05:33 27Custom Menu
26:28 28My Menu
04:41 29Camera Operation
09:31Lesson Info
Lens Options
Let's talk about some of the lens options available for the Canon 6D Mark II, it's a Canon full frame camera, which means it uses the EF full frame lenses. Canon also has EF-S lenses, which are designed for crop frame cameras and will not work on this camera. So the EF lenses are designed for the full frame sensor in this camera, so when light comes through that lens, it is projected onto that sensor in the way that you can record your full sensor with that. For some of the smaller and less expensive Canon cameras, they are using the EF-S lenses on their smaller sensors, and it is a smaller image circle for those smaller sensors. Where things get interesting is if you try to move lenses from one system to the other. This camera will not take EF-S lenses, they won't even fit on the camera. They've built the mount system so that you can't even put it on it. If you could, you would get an image that has a lot of vignetting or darkening of the corners because the image circle is not big en...
ough for the full frame sensors. You can, on the other hand, take the lenses for this camera, the EF lenses and use them on all of the Canon cameras. And so a Rebel camera for instance, you can take the 24-70 full frame lens and use it on there, you're not utilizing all that that lens has to offer in some ways, because you're only using a crop of the frame. But it will work on there. Identifying these is quite easy, the EF lenses have a red dot, and they're pretty clearly labeled as EF lenses. The EF-S have a white square, and they're labeled as EF-S lenses, and there is a third option with a white round dot, which is the EF-M, and this is for a small collection of mirror-less cameras that Canon currently has. They have a few lenses and a few cameras, and these are not gonna work on the SLRs in any way, shape, or form. With the lenses, you're gonna have the red dot, zoom lenses will have a big zoom ring, which is pretty clearly labeled. Pretty much all their lenses are gonna have a very nice, big focusing ring, some of them will be a little bit smaller. There will be a switch on all of their auto focus lenses for going from auto focus to manual focus. Most of the lenses will have filter threads so that you could add a protection filter, polarizing filter, or some other special filter. It'll be labeled with a diameter size, the 24-70 here uses an 82 millimeter, different lenses will have different sizes. There's a lot of kind of standard sizes when it comes to filters. There's a couple little notches out on front, and this is for the lens hood that you should be using with your camera in most cases. Each lens has its own specific lens hood, and so you don't swap lens hood from one lens to the other. And so this particular 24-70 uses the EW-88D lens hood. If you lose it, you wanna get that specific replacement one for it, 'cause it matches and protects the light coming in that, exactly to the angle of view that that lens sees. The better lenses will have a distance scale, and focusing mark so that you can see where you're focusing, whether it's auto focus or manual, you'll see a little gauge that shows you where you are focused. Now there's a lot of different technology, and we don't have time to go through all of that here in this class, there are special classes that you can get that just go through lenses, but Canon's favorite features, their most notable features usually get a letter on the lens. For instance L stands for luxury, that means it's one of their best quality lenses that you can get of that particular aperture and focal length range. Ultrasonic is a very quiet focusing motor, some of their lenses have image stabilization, and so you can look for these letters, and there's more information in the lens classes about what all of these technology is and does. So the L lenses is something that you're probably gonna wanna be interested in on this camera, because it does have a very high quality sensor, and you're gonna need good quality lenses to really make the best use of that sensor here. And so a lot of people are gonna have a lot of L lenses with this. Now this is what some refer to as the holy trinity of lenses, it's their zoom lenses that go to 2.8. So you have a wide angle, a normal, and a telephoto zoom lens, all of these are fantastic options, they're gonna be in the $2,000 to $2,000 plus range in price. For people who are looking to get a little bit lighter weight, or maybe a little bit less money, look at the f/4 range of zoom lenses. So they have wide angle, normal, telephoto, I also threw the 100-400 in here, it's not an f/4 constant, it's a 4.5-5.6, but these are all very good lenses that I think match up with the 6D Mark II very well. I like 'em for travel photography, I do a lot of that, and so the f/4 is just notably lighter weight and smaller in size. When you know what you really wanna do, a prime lens is a great way to go. There's a number of very good prime lenses from Canon. They have wide angle, the short telephoto that are just really, really good on this. The new 85 1.4 is an image stabilized one, we haven't seen that before from any manufacturer, and so these are gonna be some really good, nice lenses for general purpose type things, or getting very specific. The best of the non-L lenses, in my opinion, for this camera are gonna be this new series of wide angles. These are image stabilized wide angle, they're relatively small, relatively fast lenses. And so if you wanna keep the camera fairly compact, keep it under budget, still get good quality images, these L lenses do a great job. They came out with a new 24-105, it's not an L lens, it's got a variable aperture on it, but it's a good general purpose lens. There's a couple of STM lenses, these are lenses that do very well with focusing for video, and so there's a little bit smoother transition as it's focusing, and a little bit smoother when you're shooting video, and so these are some good quality lenses. They're not L, they're not that expensive, but they're still pretty good. On the older front, the older 100 millimeter macro, I have found to be an excellent lens in sharpness. The newer one is built a little bit better, but this one is very, very sharp, and you'll get very, very good images from that. And for portrait photography, the 85 1.8, it's been around for quite a while, it's not an L lens, but it is a great lens, and stop that lens down a couple of stops to f/2.8, f/4, it's gonna be fantastically sharp. It's very fast, and so if you need it under low light conditions, highly recommend that lens. I could go on all day about lenses, and I do in a different class, and so if you are interested in lenses, specifically Canon lenses, you wanna know more about every single Canon lens, I have an entire long class on this. And so if you wanna go through and understand about the best ways to choose lenses, what they all do, and we get to talk about the tilt shift lenses, the fish eye lenses, and what all the technology is in the lenses, even on how to buy and sell things used, you might wanna check out my Canon lens class. And it's a complete guide, give you all the information you need, and that's of course available here through Creative Live. Further note on this class, if you wanna leave reviews, there is a place you can leave reviews in the class. We always love to see what you have to say about these Fast Art Classes, and it's also a place where you can post a picture under student work. And so I like to go in there, and what I do is I'm using some of those images in another little project I have here at Creative Live called One Hour Photo. Once a month, I'll interview a photographer, and I'm gonna look at some of your photographs and this guest photographer, they and I will look at your photographs and we'll critique 'em. We'll talk about what we like, what we don't like, what we would change, and what we think about them. And so if you wanna submit work to that, you can go right to the page for the 6D Mark II, and submit your work in there, and if you're lucky, I may pick it out for One Hour Photo.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Warren Gedye
John, this is my second class of yours I'm taking on Creative Live. You are a very unique and articulate instructor. Your knowledge, understanding and experience in all matters photography is astounding! You have certainly fine tuned the knack in imparting your deep knowledge in such a palatable way! Your slides are magnificent, simple and concise and caters directly to your audience. I can only imagine the hours upon hours of time spent making these valuable slides. I look forward to many more of your courses!
a Creativelive Student
Always enjoy all of John's classes, but especially this one since I've decided to upgrade from my previous 6D. Awesome camera and this one is so much quieter than the older one. Thank you for explaining things in terms and ways that are easy to understand!
Tim Rogers
Thanks for a very useful course John. Not to get out and enjoy the new toy. Wish I had done the similar course for my previous camera (60D); will be recommending it to the person I am giving the camera to.
Student Work
Related Classes
Camera Guides