Canon has made some of the great cameras of our time. The new EOS M isn't one of them. The $800 EOS M is a rare miss from a company that dominates digital photography, consistently ranking No. 1 in market share year after year.
But Canon's EOS 6D, a full-frame digital SLR, is terrific and a great addition for any Canon photographer.
Canon's EOS 6D, a full-frame digital SLR, is a great addition for any Canon photographer. / Product image provided by Canon
First up, the M. It is Canon's answer to similar high-end compact cameras from Sony, Panasonic, Olympus and Samsung. It's a small, so-called mirrorless camera that's sharper than a point-and-shoot and easier to tote than a large digital SLR.
The M, released in late 2012 and just now made available for review, is slightly larger than Canon's popular PowerShot line of point-and-shoot cameras, and easily fits into a pocket.
Mirrorless technology allows companies to combine the interchangeable lens capability of DSLRs with the compact size of a high-end point-and-shoot camera. With a $200 adapter, you can use other Canon lenses with the 18-megapixel EOS M.
The M has a touch-screen-based menu and few buttons, which could be confusing for a photographer looking for options. But that's not the biggest issue. The problem is the ultra-slow auto-focus system.
Turn the camera on, and the camera struggles to find the focus point. The M is a camera you'll never want to use for sports or anything that requires speedy response -- a child on a swing, say, or a school play.
But it gets worse.
When you go into video mode and press record, the camera goes in and out of focus as it continues trying to locate the focus point. I shot several videos, and none stayed in focus.
I put the camera on the ground at a mall and got footage of the feet that came trampling by; atop a garbage can for steadiness and focused on a bush directly in front of us. I even placed it on a rock at a national park, to get video of a flowing river.
All three shots are first in focus, then out, then back in focus, as the lens wheel goes round and round.
The compact mirrorless camera market is growing rapidly, and Canon has been late to the party. There are terrific, and less expensive, models available from Panasonic, Olympus, Sony and Samsung. For Canon, it's time to go back to the drawing board and come up with an improved and fully functional M.
Meanwhile, Canon has another new camera out, and this one happens to be terrific.
The $2,100 EOS 6D, also released at the end of 2012, is a full-frame digital SLR, which means richer colors and crisper photos, thanks to the larger image sensor. It has 95 percent of the features of its bigger brother, the $3,500 5D Mark III. If you're looking at the 5D but can't afford the extra change, the 6D is a great purchase.
Canon changed the world of digital video with the release of the 5D Mark II in 2009, a full-frame camera with a sensor 20 times the size of that found in video cameras. Filmmakers and video enthusiasts embraced it, and it started being used on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live, House and others. The Mark III, came out in early 2012, and was substantially improved, with longer video recording time (29.9 minutes, vs. 12) and improved focusing.
Now, Canon has the full-frame 6D, which looks like a slightly smaller version of the 5D Mark III, but for $1,400 less. What's different?
- Focusing points. The 6D has 11 focus points. The Mark III has 61 -- that's 61 areas from which to choose, from the middle to bottom left and bottom right and everywhere else you might prefer.
- Headphone jack. The Mark III has it; the 6D doesn't.
- Storage cards. The 6D can only use an SD card. The Mark III takes Compact Flash and SD cards.
- Resolution. 20 megapixels for the 6D; 24 for the 5D Mark III.
- Wi-Fi and GPS. The 6D has a Wi-Fi feature -- with a Canon app -- that lets you ship photos directly from the camera. However, you have to turn it off if you're in video mode.
Otherwise, the camera is slightly smaller, the controls are virtually identical, and the battery is the same as the Mark III. Many will find it a great backup camera.
indystar.com
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