Canon EOS-M mirrorless: all major players are now on the field

[AJSJones]

How does a lighter body cause problems at all? Are you assuming that the position of the left hand on the lens barrel is rigidly prescribed? Surely one can achieve equally good balance by placing one's left hand a few centimeters further forward on the lens barrel with a lighter body, a few cm back with a heavier one. In fact, the bigger and heavier then lens, the less variation needed for a given change in camera body weight: the balanced hand position will be very close to the center of mass of the lens regardless of body.

I have been equally baffled by the "balance" argument - usually in the context of "gotta have a heavy 1 series to balance a heavy lens properly", as a reason to get a heavy camera or partly justify a grip.  The centre of gravity of a rig will vary depending on which body and which lens are combined, and then one adjusts the way one holds the combo accordingly.  Making the whole thing heaver doesn't make it easier to balance, unless you have to have your left hand in a specific position (e.g. 2.83 inches from something specific )  Now, the need to manipulate a touchscreen when handholding a telephoto on a mirrorless, VF-less camera strikes me as something one might be concerned about.  If you have the lens on a foot and tripod, you may as well take the DSLR along in the first place and have the mirrorless in the pocket (to balance your footing )

[stever]

seems to me the slow CD AF with the EOS lenses and adapter severely limit the usefulness of the EOS-M as a backup body

[John Camp]

I currently have a three-tier system of Nikon FF, Panasonic MFT and several pocket cameras (I just bought the new Sony RX100 today and spent some time shooting around with it, and it'll replace my aging Canon S90.)

As somebody who shoots a range of cameras, and who is not wedded to any particular brand, the new Canon struck me as a kind of bone-headed gesture toward the growing interest in compact mirrorless systems. If you're going to have an interchangeable lens system, shouldn't you, uh, have more than two lenses? If you're going to have a modern camera, especially one that you advertise as being able to use heavier lenses from your larger systems, shouldn't it offer IBIS? Especially when you build that into shirt-pocket cameras that cost 1/4 as much? If one of the two lenses you offer is a 22mm apparently aimed at the street-shooter market, shouldn't it have near-instantaneous auto-focus; reviews say it's sorta slow. A lot of very small cameras have optional EVF...why not this one?

To me, this seems like a marketing blunder. It's too late to stick a toe in, just to test the water. There are all kinds of people already selling competitive cameras, and they've got full systems out there, and they're extremely good. The biggest impact this camera may have is to convince people that they don't want a Canon mirrorless system. I expect image quality will be good, but you know what, so's the image quality in all the larger-sensor cameras now, from the J1 up.

As to the balance issue, there's nothing particularly baffling about it. If I'm handholding, say, a Nikon D3 with a 70-200 f2.8 zoom, I'll have both elbows pressed against my body and the camera will touch my face -- essentially, a kind of human tripod, with the camera weight pressing my arm bones down into my body. I hardly need any arm muscle at all to support the camera. If I try to shoot a long lens with a very small body with no EVF, my hands no longer press down into my body -- my elbow touches my body, but my forearm has to stick almost straight out so that I can focus on the LCD. That means the weight of the lens and camera has to be supported almost entirely by arm muscle, so that gravity is an enemy rather than a friend, and that leads to unsteadiness. Note that when I'm using my Panasonics, I don't stick my hands way out in front of myself (usually), but I do support my elbows against my body. But, it's not as steady as a larger camera with a viewfinder. It just isn't.

[BJL]

seems to me the slow CD AF with the EOS lenses and adapter severely limit the usefulness of the EOS-M as a backup body

@stever:

- the good news is that the EOS-M sensor has PDAF built-in (as in the Nikon One cameras), which would _seem_ to promise far better AF performance with adaptor-mounted SLR lenses than with only CDAF.

- the bad news is that reviews of this technology so far, via the Canon 650D/T4i which has the same sensor and hybrid AF system, suggest that it is rather slow, and far behind Canon's "real", SLR, AF performance and behind the CDAF of some some mirrorless cameras like recent Olympus and Panasonic models. I would give the benefit of the doubt if the slowness were just in the pre-production EOS-M bodies as mentioned by John Camp, but the 650D AF performance is in final production versions.


@John Camp: you raise a different aspect of the balance issue: not camera size, but the lack of any "eye-level" viewfinder or "forehead rest" making it harder to hold a big, heavy camera steady. There I agree: composing "on the screen" can be OK with lightweight cameras (or when tripod mounted), but I also find it problematic when hand-holding a larger, heavier camera.


Points like

- this poor performance of the in-sensor PDAF/CDAF (compared to Nikon's hybrid AF or the Olympus and Panasonic pure CDAF systems),
- the very minimal initial lens offerings,
- not even an accessory EVF option, and
- the fact that the kit of body and 22/2 ( the only way to buy it in the USA) lacks IS either in body or in lens

all suggest that Canon is making a slow, unenthusiastic and minimal response to a trend that it does not care for, perhaps because it has more to lose than any other camera maker if entry level SLR sales are lost to mirror-less systems.

[Chris_Brown]

I would like to see the mirror box be done away with in all cameras, especially full-frame DSLRs. It's a throwback from the days of film and with the advent of high resolution eye-level video finders its design will become obsolete. Camera optics will take a huge quantum leap in quality once retro-focus designs are no longer the norm.

We're seeing the beginning of the end of the reflex mirror box.

As an alternative to the flapping mirror, how about a pellicle mirror? When I used the Canon F-1 N Pellicle (9 frames per second!), the mirror absorbed a half-stop of light. Now that mid-high ISO values are not noisy, a half-stop is a minor nuisance. The added bonus is that the sensor would be isolated from dust and debris.

[JohnAONeill]

This just shows how the mighty have fallen. A me-too model without a viewfinder!?

I have to agree with this statement. I was actually holding out for ages to see what Canon would come up with and gave up waiting to get the Sony Nex 7. Seeing the specs on the Canon -M made me glad I went for the Sony! Pity really.

John

[fike]

I have to agree with this statement. I was actually holding out for ages to see what Canon would come up with and gave up waiting to get the Sony Nex 7. Seeing the specs on the Canon -M made me glad I went for the Sony! Pity really.

John

Me too. I gave up and went with the OM-D.  When their Canon G1X was announced, I was briefly intrigued, but the infatuation quickly wore off...same with EOS-M.

Canon won't cannibalize their entry-level DSLR sales until they absolutely have to.  They are behaving a bit like Kodak in following the short-term money off a cliff.  If there are one or two more transformative innovations along the lines of high-quality camera phones, D800, or mirrorless cameras, they may put themselves in a tailspin they can't recover from.  I don't think they are there yet, but it isn't hard to imagine that happening.  

[Piboy]

I agree with some of the comments that Canon is a bit late to the party.  I too, like the comment above, am using a three tier system...Canon FF, Panasonic MFT and LX3.  For a mirrorless semicompact system the GH2 fits my needs perfectly and don't see how Canon M adds anything especially given awkward interchangeability of lenses and limited choices of pure M lenses. As I do a lot of hiking and having just returned from Yosemite the GH2 was great on days when I don't feel like lugging 40 lbs of gear on the trail.
Sam

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Check this out:

After just two days on the Top 100 Bestselling Cameras on Amazon, Canon M is already trending down (note the red arrow). Currently #6.

Sony RX100 is still #1, after 42 days.

Nikon D800 is #5, but trending up, after 144 days.

The whole list here.

[fike]

Check this out:

After just two days on the Top 100 Bestselling Cameras on Amazon, Canon M is already trending down (note the red arrow). Currently #6.

Sony RX100 is still #1, after 42 days.

Nikon D800 is #5, but trending up, after 144 days.

The whole list here.

That's a pretty interesting list to comb through.  I found these amusing. Someone is obviously still making money off film.

[BJL]

The underwater disposables make sense for beach vacation fun, and I think the disposable camera ten packs are popular for the tables at wedding banquets.

But those Amazon lists are a bit hard to take seriously: #2 and #3 are versions of the "GoPro HD HERO2" (what?!).

[AJSJones]

But those Amazon lists are a bit hard to take seriously: #2 and #3 are versions of the "GoPro HD HERO2" (what?!).

Neat little cams, those!

I think that puts some perspective on the relative sizes of the various demographics in the camera-buying world.  All the youth with skateboards skis mountain bikes ziplines skydiving etc etc you name it are snapping them up - easier than strapping some of the other things on a helmet - these even come with a range of mounting options.  No EOS-M for those guys

[BernardLanguillier]

Canon M positioning...

http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/does-this-help.html

They seem to be a bit lost... their choice of axis is scary for still photographers (who don't seem to matter much) but still doesn't make much sense relative to the needs of customers. What the heck does creativity means?

It is always fascinating to notice to what extend the strategic product planning issues of companies end up faithfully translating in the specs of their products. In fact, the better a company is able to execute, the more strikingly obvious the hesitations of the high management show on the shelves of stores.

Cheers,
Bernard