First weekend hockey with the R6 Mark II and RF 70-200 f/4

Hi everyone,

Here is a review of my first weekend owning a Canon R6 Mark II with the RF 70-200 f/4 lens. I'm coming off using Nikon D750 for quite a few years, so this is my take on the difference I've noticed.

I photographed a youth hockey tournament this weekend. I experimented a lot with settings, focus points, and drive speed. I typically shoot around 500-700 shots per hockey game and edit them on my Mac when I'm back home.

I watched every YouTube video and read every article to ensure I was ready. I couldn't have been further from being prepared. My first mistake was using the whole area AF with face detection enabled. With many faces in a tiny space, it took a lot of work to narrow down to what I wanted the camera to track. After a lot of different settings and testing, Flexible Zone AF 2 worked best for me. I realized that people detection works only inside the autofocus area. Once I figured this out, I was able to wrestle the autofocus with more excellent command and control.

I tested the mechanical and electronic shutter and captured some images that were never possible with the D750. I filled my buffer in very small spurts in an instant. The electronic shutter is impressive but gives you a considerable amount of photos to cull.

The RF 70-200 f/4 was a dream to use. Other than the fact the zooming is reverse to Nikon (or Nikon is reverse to Canon), that took a while to get my muscle memory erased. I did find it a bit annoying when I was shooting in 70mm (with the lens hood on) and right up against the glass (glass around the boards in a hockey arena) and had to zoom out suddenly. It would push the lens off the glass into my face.

Complaints.
Battery life, battery life, battery life. I could easily shoot a hockey tournament weekend (4 - 6 games) with a 100% charged battery in my D750. I could only manage two games with the R6 Mark II before requiring charging. I wasn't prepared for this, but I will have to pick up an extra battery.

Can I charge the R6 Mark II via USB-C with the battery in the camera?

I also noticed the viewfinder was very bright and a pleasure to look through, and it took some getting used to coming from the D750. However, when I got the images home, they appeared to be much darker than what I saw in the viewfinder and a little disappointing. Shooting in RAW and processing in Canon DPP 4 pulled them back to life. Again, probably another setting I need to change somewhere.

Questions
One very major annoyance I had all weekend shooting. When I had my eye up to the viewfinder and then took my eye away, the display would now show what my lens was seeing. If the camera hangs off my neck and points at the ground, it will display that until I bring the camera back to my eye.

Can this be disabled?

Similarly, viewing an image on display would then show up in the viewfinder when I brought the camera up to my eye. Extremely annoying.

I'm hoping there is a setting somewhere where I've missed that allows the viewfinder to see through the lens and the display for the menu and images.

Summary
It was a great learning experience, and I look forward to many more sporting events. I will need a BG-R10 Battery Grip, as my pinky was always hanging off the bottom of the camera. The battery grip might give me better camera control as well.

I can't wait to get out and shoot more with this phenomenal machine. I will now need to add some wide angles like the RF 24-105mm f/4 and the RF 14-35mm f/4 at a later date.

I did not test the video, as I never used this on my D750. I will try this to see the results at some point.