Hitting new heights with the Canon EOS R6 Mark II

Although based in Paris, Teddy Morellec spends half of the year living in the French Alps. Between shooting assignments for clients that include Red Bull – a brand he has been working with since 2010 – you can find him biking, skiing or learning to paraglide in the mountains.

The shoot got off to a challenging start, as Teddy wanted to capture the speed flyers skimming across the surface of the lake. The plan was for Ugo and Gaëtan to launch themselves from a cliff and quickly descend the mountain before emerging from the tree line near the lake. They would be visible to Teddy for just a few seconds, and as they were following the wind, there was no guarantee they would be on the same path each time.

A team of spotters helped to work out where the speed flyers were coming from, so Teddy could at least aim his Canon EOS R6 Mark II in the right area. The camera's upgraded Dual Pixel CMOS AF II autofocus reacted instantly, picking up the wing of the speed flyer and tracking it all the way through the sequence.

"We didn't think we were going to get any to begin with, but I loved the pictures we got," enthuses Teddy. "When we arrived early at the location, the weather was tricky. It was cloudy, occasionally raining, and a bit windy at the landing site, which was not good for the pilots. After a few failed attempts, the clouds finally parted and we got the shot.

"I really like the mood that we captured. There were still some clouds above the trees, but the sun was highlighting the speed flyer nicely. The lake was also very calm, so there was an almost perfect reflection on the surface. Everything just came together at that moment when the pilot touched the water and created the splash. Being able to shoot the sequence at 40fps was perfect, because it gave me more choice for picking the best moment later."

In addition to 40fps shooting, the Canon EOS R6 Mark II has a 30fps RAW burst mode with pre-shooting. When this is enabled, the camera starts buffering images when the shutter button is half-pressed, then saves the contents of the buffer – up to half a second's worth of images – when the shutter button is fully pressed. It's the perfect option for shooting unpredictable subjects and in situations where you can't see the subject until the last moment.

Teddy took advantage of this function when photographing Louise-Anna Ferguson in a bike park. To get a dynamic shot of her mid-jump, Teddy set up at ground level underneath a wooden ramp. While he could hear the bike approaching the ramp, he was unable to see Louse-Anna until she entered the frame.

"She was riding quite fast, and I was shooting blind, so it was super helpful to have the pre-capture," he says. "Even if I could potentially have made the shot without this function, it gave me the confidence that even if I didn't press the shutter button at the right moment, I could go back half a second."

Having the pre-capture function available along with the enhanced Dual Pixel CMOS AF II subject detection and tracking gave Teddy more flexibility to frame the shot. He wanted to freeze Louise-Anna in the middle of a clearing between the trees above him, something which the camera's new Flexible Zone AF made even easier.

This function enables the size and shape of the Zone AF frame to be customised. It allowed Teddy to create an autofocus zone that matched the area that Louise-Anna would be jumping into and ensured that the camera wouldn't lock onto other parts of the scene. The EOS R6 Mark II detected and tracked Louise-Anna's head, even though she was wearing a helmet and mask.

Video is an increasingly important aspect of Teddy's work, and the ability to effortlessly switch between stills and video is vital. In movie mode, the EOS R6 Mark II uses the full width of the camera sensor, so you don't have to reframe shots when moving from stills, and there's a new photo/video selector on the left of the body that makes it quick to swap between modes.

The Canon EOS R6 Mark II features the same high-performance In-Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) as the EOS R6, bringing additional smoothness to video footage as well as stills. "I used to have a DSLR with no IBIS and I would often have to add stabilisation in post-production," explains Teddy. "But now, with the EOS R System cameras, you can do so many things handheld. Even panning with the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM or the RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM, you can just start recording and the video isn't shaky."

IBIS enabled Teddy to grab footage on the fly with the EOS R6 Mark II – sometimes literally. When he was on a tandem flight with the speed flyers, he had to travel light and there was no opportunity to carry a gimbal. Having IBIS allowed him to record smooth clips with the camera in his hands.

"If I could have had a camera like the EOS R6 Mark II when I was starting out, it would have changed my workflow so much," he says. "With the IBIS, 4K 60p video, the crazy-good autofocus and 40fps burst speed, I know that I could do almost everything with this one camera."