Canon Test Drive - free Test Drive with 4fill.com

  

Canon Test Drive - free Test Drive with 4fill.com

5 Jan 2022 11:06PM   Views : 480 Unique : 311

Just wanted to share my great experience with the recent 12 days of Christmas Test Drive from Canon Europe

I've often recommended people hire or try out a camera before buying a particular model, so when Canon's email popped into my email box a month ago, and pretty much suggested I try out the EOS R6 that I've been lusting after for well over a year now - well it seemed just too good a chance to say no too!

Nervously I started filling out the web forms, selecting the EOS R6 I really wanted, of course they also suggested the EF/RF adapter - actually one with a polarizing filter with in it.
Then greedily I also chose a beautiful RF 15-35mm f2.8 wide angle lens. Then did a double 'are you sure' check and filled in the refundable deposit details. It almost felt to good to be true. I waited and imagined how i could mix family Christmas with taking some personally worthwhile shots.
A few days before the expected delivery date a super polite lady phoned from Canon/4fill.com to say would I mind if the camera and lens was delivered early. Great news," yes please", I said as I walked across the local DIY shop carpark feeling a bit surreal about how keen someone was to loan me what I really wanted.



Well the next day first thing in the morning, there it all was packaged like the crown jewels on my sofa, I took the photo to remind me how to repack it and how exciting it looked.
The batteries were fully charged and there was even a super fast SD card in the camera. The Camera manual was on a thumb drive. Everything was ready to go

OK, on with the Lens and taking the first few shots of my front room, then over to the laptop to see how they look. That's when I remembered I really prefer RAW, but the JPEG's were really great on their own. Setting the Camera to RAW plus large JPG I then ventured outside in the garden for more shots. I needed to also install Adobe DNG Converter and update Windows to read the CR3 files. A bit of a faf with my aging Lightroom 5.7 but when I get my own R6 then i'll solve that.

A bit more menu walking, and trying out focus modes, touch screen focussing trials with spot and surround spot focussing - though i never got round to seeing if the joystick could also move the focus point. But compared to my old 6D with its fixed few focus points its a dream to use. Especially when shooting very close to the ground and focusing on the flip out touch screen - I no longer needed to put my own face in the dirt to check where the focus was With that 15-35mm Wide angle low down, the shots for me were amazing.

.
The next test was Christmas morning opening Santa's presents with my Kid, Face focus was used @ f8 on my now very old 24-105 f4 even with a fastish shutter speed to capture unblurred images the snaps were super. The ISO cranked comfortably up to 12800 or more in normal room light to capture the wonder on his face with perfectly acceptable results
From this I went on to fun wide angles of the family, which went down rather well where the lens centred on a face slimmed peoples bodies.

Then a few days later some macros with a very old sigma EF70mm, and some great hand help shots of the garden at night with my EF 50mm F1.8 - super detail in the dark - and I'd forgot all about increased light loss from the polarizing filter which I'd forgot to remove from the EF/RF convertor. Oops, but it hardly mattered.

So, in summery the EOS R6 was so good it was almost boring, it was faster than I needed, Lighter and more comfortable than my old 6D, focused brilliantly and let me hand hold with more DOF then ever before. In fact you could pretty much forget it and just focus on getting the image each time - perfect.
The convertor is a bit of a Faf when swapping between RF and EF lenses but that polarising filter is a super idea.
Best of all was the 15-35mm, I knew I always wanted a wide angle but this is a truly lovely lens, and coupled with the touch screen focus its idyllic, especially as it focusses down to only 11 inches away.

Very sad to see it go back, and nervous that it would be delivered OK back to 4fill.com. But their reminder communications, and delivery and check-in communications from them were super; The final lovely polite message said all was OK and deposits to be refunded in full

So yes, I'd still VERY MUCH recommend people try out a camera even if only for a few days to show what's possible and try out some amazing new shot opportunities. If this is for you with Canon try - https://www.canontestdrive-uk.com - I'm sure other manufacturers have similar schemes.

I loved confirming what I knew I wanted before I spend my money.

Thanks, Canon/4fill.com
Stuart

Tags: Canon Hire Rental test drive