http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/canon/announcements/canons-first-mirrorless-camera-eos-m EDIT: ; CLICK THIS FOR THE PRODUCT LINK *left field is because of Canon's prior comments that they weren't developing a mirrorless system because the market wasn't asking for one 18mp APS-C sensor New EOS-M mount, takes EF-S and EF lenses with an adaptor New hybrid AF sensor with on sensor phase detect sites No EVF Touchscreen LCD with touch point AF
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).
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....
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! 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.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/883406-REG/Canon_6098b002_EF_M_Lens_Adapter_Kit.html It was a good move to have one adapter than can use both kinds of lenses!
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.
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: Heck, this is ISO25,600 right from the camera: 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!!
