Canon comes out of left field* and introduces the EOS-M Mirrorless

Roger

Roger

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Not gonna lie... you beat me to this one, Roger. ; I am SERIOUSLY thinking about getting one of these which would make my G1x expendable after such a short life in my house. ; I need to do some more research on this one but it looks promising. ;

Folks with mirrorless cameras... ; what do you think about them (+ and -)?
 
Well, though it would provide you with the ability to use some existing Canon lenses on a smaller body, I wonder if you'd have any lenses that would really pair very comfortably with it, along with the adapter needed too. ; I'd think for lens-interchangeability you'd likely want to stick mostly to EOS-M mount lenses, of which there are only two of unknown quality. ; My guess is your G1X is still a better lens, same sensor, better controls and ergonomics, and has some advantages like a viewfinder and a tilting screen.

Honestly compared to other mirrorless systems, this one sort of underwhelms me. ; Unless you are a devoted Canon follower with a host of smaller normal Canon crop lenses ready to use, it would seem this wouldn't provide any real advantage over the Sony NEX or Micro 4:3 cameras, and in fact is a bit short on comparable features and probable performance...though I will admit this is an unknown until fully tested.

What I prefer so far about my NEX-5N over this one, that I can tell so far: ; tilting LCD screen, optional EVF, manual focus peaking, more eMount lenses to choose from, much better battery life, more programmability for custom buttons, tiny flash unit provided, faster fps burst. ; I do think the Canon's menu structure looks better than the NEX's...but that doesn't really affect me too much since the NEX thankfully lets me have up to 9 direct controls programmed to the buttons without having to go into the menu. ; Unknowns are focus speed, image quality, and high ISO performance - the NEX does very well in all three of these, so I wouldn't expect better - I'd expect same or worse.

In fact, much the same comparison list against M4:3 cameras to the Canon has me favoring M4:3 as well. ; I'm thinking this is Canon's first gentle dip of the toe into the market - I suspect a better, more competitive effort will follow down the road a bit.
 
To be honest, I am almost ready to give Canon another try. ; The future is mirrorless, and while Sony is the leader, I'm not vested in their system anymore.

m4/3 is great for the size, but the lens selection is still building up. ; The main reason I still am planning on giving them a shot is the built in cha cha 3D mode. ; Sony still loves the sweep panorama 3D mode rather than the cha cha method. ; But I could still use the method and do the stitching in post using Stereo Photo Maker....just a matter of desires.

The lack of an EVF is troubling however. ; While the E-PM1 doesn't have one, I have grown to miss it (the EVF, not OVF).
 
"zackiedawg" said:
Honestly compared to other mirrorless systems, this one sort of underwhelms me. ;
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Justin, after you mentioned this it dawned on me.

I really hope that this wasn't an attempt to put an underwhelming camera on the market, just to say "There you go. ; Mirrorless. ; Happy now?" and then cancel the whole thing when sales disappoint. ; While it's hard to believe that a company would do such a thing, it's possible.

It's just usually a gamble to someone's employment, even if the direction is coming from someone higher up.


I need to find that quote. ; Reuters report on this release is more telling. ; Mirrorless has 1/3 of the SLR market in Japan, only 10% stateside, and that I think is because the camera manufacturers were successful in selling the notion that you had to have an SLR to take good pics of your family. ; Meanwhile they see their P&S business failing due to cell phone cameras.

I think we've seen the shift, and that shift is more and more focus on the art, which includes post-processing and HDR. ; Time to wax nostalgic about shooting positive film, and bracketing exposures! ;

Son, in my day, we used Photoshop 1.0.7, and we liked it! ; There was never a need for more than 2 colors - white and black! ; And you got photos into the system by taking those prints, and putting them on a scanner. ; It took hours to scan a photo into our lovely Mac running OS VI, and we liked it! ; A few years later, we could scan the negatives directly in a scanner, and it only took 15 minutes to scan a single one! ; In color! ; Imagine that, you could process your trip photos (uhh let's see 60 rolls of film, x36 exposures, uhhhh) with only 540 hours worth of work! ; Now you young wippersnappers think you can process 3000 photos in a weekend.

Bah.

Get off my lawn! ; Before I go find some toxic film developing chemicals....
 
"Roger" said:
I really hope that this wasn't an attempt to put an underwhelming camera on the market, just to say "There you go. ; Mirrorless. ; Happy now?" and then cancel the whole thing when sales disappoint. ; While it's hard to believe that a company would do such a thing, it's possible.
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I doubt it - from what I've heard bandied about, it seems likely that Canon is going to be releasing another body, possibly a slightly more 'pro' model, which would satisfy the enthusiast crowd who want a Canon solution. ; It wouldn't surprise me to see their G1X evolve into interchangeable lens off the same format - large body, but more full-featured, and combined with the larger sensor and lens compatibility.

I can't see them walking away from it though. ; If anything, Canon and Nikon might see mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras as a testing ground, with the possibility that the future of DSLRs could use technologies being used on mirrorless - certainly if they can overcome some of the compromises, there are plenty of upsides to dumping the mirror in an SLR body - with the ability to test and evolve EVF systems, work on autofocus solutions such as PDAF on-sensor, and just learning to tune up the speed to match the IQ, mirrorless systems which are now completely seperate lines could eventually just become the replacement for entry-level DSLRs, while larger DSLRs start grabbing mirrorless technology and incorporating it into the larger, full control bodies. ; This seems to be a time of experimentation, and Canon is just a bit late to the party - with M4:3 invented, then Sony developing APS-C versions of mirrorless, Fuji coming out with their hybrid OVF/EVF finders, Nikon & Fuji and now Canon experimenting with on-sensor PDAF, Sony with their translucent mirrors for full-time still and video PDAF during filming and bursts, super-high-end OLED EVFs, and so on...in 5 years, none of these cameras could be on the market - they all could be the various ancestors and test-beds for the future of APS-C and full-frame pro body cameras.
 
Couldn't disagree with anything you said there!

"zackiedawg" said:
full-frame pro body cameras.
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Did you see the rumor pop up that Sony is announcing their 36mp A99 full frame 12fps SLT this week? ; Thought it was kind of odd because it seemed out of place, but maybe they are doing the "pre-announcement announcement" thing. ; I don't know what to make of it other than it's correct other than the timing, it isn't a secret about a 36mp FF sensor made by Sony. ;

Who was it that posted the thing about Sony making something like 35%+ of the world's camera sensors? ; Oh that's right, Roger Cicala! ; (That doesn't sound like much, but #2 is Canon, with 12% of the market. ; That's a pretty big jump.) ; And how the Sony sensors seem to be high up on the DXO testing....

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/07/is-sony-going-to-be-the-digital-kodak

Summary: ; Is Sony going to turn into something like Intel, where you'll see marketing of "Nikon D900, with SonyInside!" or the "Olympus OM-10, with SonyInside"?

/this post made from a PC with SonyInsideâ„¢
 
Perhaps the coolest option (accessory) is a EF-S mount adapter... ; The lens lineup just exploded once you get that bad boy.
 
True - it does open up a lot of lens options. ; However just a quickie warning: ; The performance of lenses with the adapter are not likely going to be anything close to DSLR level speed-wise - likely not even as fast as the EOS-M lenses. ; Sony has a similar adapter (actually two different types) - the one that allows the Alpha-mount lenses to AF and control aperture is the LA-EA1 - but because Alpha-mount lenses weren't originally designed and optimized to function with the slower focusing system and smaller power delivery from the mirrorless body, they are quite a bit slower and clunkier. ; Same story is likely with Canon EOS lenses not being optimized for the CDAF/on-sensor PDAF of the new EOS-M system...slooooow!

It's good in a pinch when you just need to add lenses - but in all honesty, one of the biggest draws of the mirrorless cameras in general is the ability to use any mount ever made - tens of thousands of legacy lenses from nearly every manufacturer on the planet...just in manual focus mode. ; Those adapters are only $20-40 and are a ton of fun. ; There's even an electronically-connected Canon EOS adapter to mount on NEX cameras to control the aperture and enable the stabilization! ; You don't have to be a dedicated fanboy for any one brand or mount with a mirrorless - you can use lenses from all over the place. ; I regularly shoot with Vivitar, Pentax, Konica, Chinon, Soligor, and Canon lenses on my NEX.
 
Well said Justin, although I think the two latest EF lenses are optimized for this system...
 
I was hoping for something a bit cheaper, had an idea to pick one up for my 13 y/o who is showing a lot of interest in photography (I wonder why? ;) ).
 
i think canon put this out now, because it has become do or start to die for them, i agree with all that roger said, cell phones are killing the no patience got no time to even read the manual point n shoot crowd sales, and they need to be on this market, should have been there 2 years ago, i feel this is just a temporary, hey look we have a model after all and that 3 years down the timeline, canon will then be showing some serious entries for the prosumer crowd, 8 years from now my much loved mark3 will just be heavy old antique, relegated to being used while standing next to the car or on a studio tripod, while my full frame mirrorless will be banging around town with a 3-4 lens set weighing less than my mark3 plus 24-105,
1 full frame body, 1 pancake 50mm in f1.2, 8-24mm f4.0, 25-200 f4.0, 200-400 f4, all combined under 6 lbs under 10 for whole bag with extra batteries, charger and plenty of those 128gb sdhc cards.


TAKE IT TO THE BANK, IT'S COMING
 
I agree Gary - it's likely this is what the future will bring. ; Even if the mirrorless cams aren't there yet as far as fully replacing DSLRs in every regard, they can flat-out match them in IQ in many cases, and for casual photography needs - even some specialty needs. ; Get better with the EVF technology, phase-detect AF on sensor, battery life, tracking focus, and buffer size, and you've got your DSLR match.

As it is, I'm regularly surprised at what I can do with a mirrorless cam. ; Not 2 years ago, ISO12800 was pretty much the sole domain of full-frame DSLRs, or a ton of post-processing rescue. ; Now, I can take my $500 mirrorless with its kit lens, and rattle off shockingly usable ISO12800 JPGs right out of the camera with no post processing at all:
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Heck, this is ISO25,600 right from the camera:
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Shoot in RAW, do some noise reduction, some post processing, and you could do even better - but this is a $500 mirrorless with kit lens, hand held and JPG. ; Who knows where IQ will be in another 2 years!!
 
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