The Sweet Spot

RLight wrote:

R2D2 wrote:

Alastair Norcross wrote:

Excellent review. My only major disagreement is with the portrait score. I give it 5/5 for that. I much prefer primes over zooms for portraits, and the Sigma 56 is simply a stellar portrait prime for APS-C. The 32 and 22 are also good for portraits (depending on the style). The combination of the excellent eye AF of the M6II and the available fast primes (for longer working distance, the adapted 85 F1.8 works really well) makes the M6II an excellent portrait camera.

Yes, I’d have to give it at least 4.5/5 for portraits. The Eye AF is simply beyond marvelous, and the Siggy 56 is a stellar lens for M. So much so that I sold my 50 STM and 60 Macro, and hardly ever use my 40 or even my 85 any more!

The only reason I don’t give it a 5/5 is that you can still get slightly more background blur with FF.

R2

Understand, that the EOS M system does not exist in a vacuum, and both comparing it against it's peers (Fuji X and Sony E mounts) and even now FF offerings due to price (Eos RP with say a EF 85mm f/1.8 adapted) and these reviews go on Amazon, not just our little echo chamber of folks wanting confirmation bias.

Pictures say a thousand words.

EF 85mm f/1.8 adapted

The fabulous, but, manual focus Rokinon 50mm f/1.2 on the EOS M6 Mark II. A lens I don't recommend to most people as they simply can't or won't do manual focus, let alone at f/1.2 at a longer focal

28mm on a FF @ f/2. We still don't have a fast zoom. Environmental portraits, not just "85mm" exist I can assure you

The reality is a Fuji X-T3 or A6600 should get 4/5 and a EOS R and A7 III should get 5/5 for portraits in the grand context of general cameras, especially when you start looking at price and peers and what someone will logically shoot. Even a used 6D with 85mm f/1.8 is arguably better at portraits due to the sheer glass alone.

Now, is the M6 Mark II just "average" because I gave it 3/5? No, it's excellent. But then again so is your smartphone at that now (ouch). Canon at this junction, needs to step up their game if they want 4/5 or 5/5 for portraits in this category with the M. I fear they won't truth told and that's okay. A camera that does pretty darn good in portraits, and stellar in everything else, is nothing to poke an eye with a sharp stick with. I can't say the same about other cameras, especially for the bulk and price which is once again, why I own an M6 Mark II. But, I also own an R and RF 28-70 f/2L for "party duty" and special events, bokeh, and extreme low light still as a result.

I've been trying to understand what you think you're showing with these pictures. I hope I'm wrong, but all I can think of is that you're saying that the M6II, with currently available lenses, can't get as shallow DOF as can the R with currently available lenses, unless you use something as unwieldy as a manual focus 50 F1.2. That's not it, is it? A few years ago, photographers who moved from a compact point-and-shoot to a DSLR would be very impressed by their sudden ability to blur backgrounds. The same now goes for cellphone photographers (though some of them just do that with software on their phones now). They would notice that portraits, especially, would have more impact when the subject stood out from the background. Some would then think that, because subject separation was a good thing, more of it would be better, with no limit. I remember a photographer on one of these forums who spent a year or so in search of ever thinner depth of field. When he got the 85 F1.2L, he posted a bunch of head and shoulders portraits taken with that lens wide open. One eye was in focus, sometimes the eyeball, sometimes the eye lash, never both, and never both eyes. As portraits, they were truly horrendous. The point is that shallow depth of field is a photographic effect, like any other, that has to be used to the appropriate degree. I have never seen a head and shoulders portrait at 85 F1.2 that wouldn't have been better at F2 or even F2.8. Likewise, environmental portraits, as the name suggests, incorporate elements of the environment. The amount of appropriate subject separation therefore depends on how recognizable you want the environment to be. Your 28 F2 shot is very nice. That shot with the M6II using the Sigma 16 at F1.4 would have been equally nice, if not nicer. The depth of field would have been slightly more (not a whole lot), but that wouldn't have taken away from the shot. In fact, it would probably have improved it (the fountain itself would have been more in focus).

As I said, I hope I misinterpreted your point. You seem to have a fair bit of photographic experience, so I would have thought that you wouldn't still be taking the simple-minded view that less depth of field is necessarily better for portraits. As for what you say about Fuji and Sony APS-C, I have no idea why you think they should score 4/5 for portraits, but the M6II 3/5. Which lenses on the Fuji or Sony are better for portraits than the 56 F1.4, 32 F1.4, or 16 F1.4 on the Canon? And this is even granting the highly questionable assumption that the score for the camera is determined by the lenses.