Canon T6s Review

It was with great sadness that I boxed up my latest camera rental, the Canon T6s, from Borrowedlenses.com last week and returned it to them via Fed-Ex. I rented this camera for a ten day period, just as I had done with my first camera rental, the Fuji X-T1.

This time instead of taking the rental on a trip, I used it just as I would in my everyday life, which meant lots of mornings spent at the beach.

I tried a variety of my lenses on it, capturing some of my normal things like tug boats in the harbor, but I also put my underused telephoto lens on it and did a little wildlife shooting.

Now, I must admit that Canon is my comfort zone, as opposed to the Fuji that I tried the first time, and that may have flavored my happiness with the camera somewhat, but there were still some pros and cons to it.

First of all, the thing that I disliked the most about the Fuji X-T1, the LCD screen, is the thing I loved most about the Canon T6s. The ability of the Canon's screen to fully flip out and rotate 180 degrees was a big selling point for me. It was so much easier to compose a low to the ground shot with the Canon screen, and the ability for it to flip 180 degrees made my self-portraiture work so much easier. The Fuji screen only tilted, instead of flipping out and around. There is still a regular viewfinder, so once the shot is composed, I can set my focusing point through the viewfinder, having to bend only once instead of ten times, making my back so much happier.

Some additional pros - very light weight, and a locking button for the mode selector. My current Canon does not have that and I am always finding myself in Manual Mode or TV mode unintentionally.

Some cons - I did not like having the movie button grouped together with the on/off switch. More than once when it was dusky outside, I accidentally put it in movie mode, and then I wondered why when I got home and loaded my photos, I had some weird movies as well. Also, while I love that the body is lightweight, I wonder about the durability of it long term. I noticed already, this being a rental camera and used by a variety of people, that the latch for the battery compartment was starting to break. Speaking of batteries, I found the battery life to not be as long as my current five year old camera.

I was super happy with the image quality though, and noticed a nice improvement from my obsolete, five year old Canon T2i.

After renting the T6s, my decision was made, the articulating screen sold me, and in the two days that I waited for my new camera to arrive, there were a multitude of times that I wished I had that screen to use for a composition or low to the ground shot.

While you might be thinking I got the T6s, in spite of some of the cons, that would be incorrect. I bought one step up, the highest level Canon I could get with the articulating screen, the Canon 70D. The screen sold me, but I wanted a sturdier body, and a few more bells and whistles, including a dedicated AF Lock button, and a separate movie button. Also the battery life reviewed much higher than the T6s, an important factor when I am out and about all day.

There is a learning curve, as there is with anything new and different, but thus far, I am enjoying my new camera immensely.