You’ve probably wondered if the Canon EOS R6 Mark III is a real step forward or just another mid-cycle refresh with nicer specs on paper. This field session puts it in heat, shade, and constant motion, where small misses turn into blown shots.
Coming to you from Duade Paton, this fantastic video drops the Canon EOS R6 Mark III straight into a backyard bird setup instead of a studio test chart. Paton starts by building the scene the hard way: a trough of water, then hand-picked branches that look good on camera, mounted with star pickets and reusable cable ties. The detail that sticks is how much the perch height controls the background, since a few inches can flip grass into a dark treeline. Paton also shows a simple positioning trick that fixes a “dark band” in the background without touching the perch, which is the kind of mistake you only notice when you’re already shooting.
The gear choices add another layer, because Paton swaps between a slow super-tele zoom and a long prime and calls out the tradeoffs while shooting. Day one leans on the RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM. You also see the real-world reason to raise shutter speed hard when birds start fighting, plus the framing mistake almost everyone makes when wings come up and you’re zoomed too tight. Day two switches to an EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM with a Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the change in “snappiness” becomes obvious when subjects hop perch to perch.
Paton keeps the camera talk practical. You hear about burst shooting at 40 fps, how the buffer behaves in this kind of nonstop work, and what the electronic viewfinder feels like when you’re mostly waiting for birds to land instead of tracking birds in flight. There’s also a moment that will matter if you shoot in summer heat: an overheating warning appears and it lands right where you’d rather keep your eye on exposure tools. The video doesn’t turn into a thermal torture test, but it shows the kind of annoyance that never shows up in a spec list, especially when you’re tucked under a hide with no airflow. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Paton.