Canon EOS M5
See, that didn’t hurt too much, did it? Canon finally reveals that it knew how to build a very competitive mirrorless camera all along. Good news for Canon fans, bad news for the rest of the mirrorless world.
It’s Canon’s best mirrorless camera so far, but there’s still room for improvement. Nevertheless, you do get all the capabilities of a mid-range EOS D-SLR in a very much smaller package. Very much smaller.
Regular readers will know we’ve been prodding Canon for quite a while about the need to get onboard the mirrorless camera train before it’s too late. Mirrorless is here to stay so the longer Canon stayed dabbling on the sidelines – sorry, the previous EOS M models just didn’t cut the mustard – the harder it was going to be to catch up with the likes of Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic and Sony. They’ve already snatched away some valuable market share and time was running out, but perhaps we shouldn’t have worried because along comes the EOS M5… which is verging on brilliant. There are still some issues, as you’ll read, but nevertheless a hungry Canon cat is now prowling among the rest of the mirrorless camera pigeons… especially those with ‘APS-C’ size sensors.
Before we get to the EOS M5 itself, there are a couple of implications to think about. Firstly, Canon still has a lot invested in D-SLRs, but whether it likes it or not, it has now confirmed that mirrorless is the future in interchangeable lens cameras, especially in the entry-level and enthusiast categories. The M5 very convincingly illustrates just why. It also provides some indication of how much of a force to be reckoned with Canon will be when it moves further up-market and perhaps even ventures into Sony A7 full-35mm sensor territory.
So where does this leave archrival Nikon? The 1 Nikon system has some plus points, but we’re done with very small sensors in mirrorless cameras – something else that the EOS M5 illustrates pretty well – and, you may have noticed, there hasn’t been a new ‘CX’ format Nikkor lens for quite some time. Quite simply, Nikon needs to get going with a proper sized sensor in a mirrorless camera very soon, or it will be left behind… it simply can’t afford to let Canon, in particular, get too far ahead here.
MONEY MATTERS
So, back to the EOS M5. Canon’s biggest achievement here is its size. It’s as petite as Olympus’s OM-D E-M10 Mark II, but with the larger ‘APS-C’ sensor and Canon has still found room for a builtin EVF, a tilt-adjustable monitor screen – sized at 8.1 cm too – a built-in pop-up flash and a dialbased control layout.
Not so small is the price tag which, at around $1599 for the camera body alone, creates expectations that the M5 can’t actually meet. It’s more expensive than either Olympus’s E-M5 Mark II or the Panasonic Lumix G85 – both much better equipped – and, in the ‘APS-C’ sensor category, Fujifilm’s X-T10 or Sony’s A6300. The OM-D E-M10 II is a massive $600 cheaper with a lens. It’s not that Canon has omitted anything that’s truly important, but it’s skimped on quite a few of the extras that photographers still want – a multiple exposure facility, white balance bracketing, intervalometer for stills, anti-flicker, weather-proofing (pretty much standard at this price point), incamera panoramas, limited AF area mode choices, and on the video side, 4K recording (see the Making Movies panel for a run-down of the camera’s video capabilities).
While the M5 is being described as the “little brother of the EOS 80D” in terms of its imaging stage, it’s actually a bit behind its D-SLR cousin in terms of its overall capabilities… which, of course, could be deliberate. Perhaps Canon isn’t quite ready to kick the D-SLR habit just yet, but the M5’s feature set also betrays some confusion about exactly who it’s aimed at… for example, a ‘selfie’ screen position option on a $1600 camera body? Hello?
Yet the M5 has plenty of stuff that’s clearly targeted at enthusiasts – the ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’ with its impressive speed and accuracy tops the list – so perhaps Canon’s first objective is to give loyal EOS D-SLR users a truly compact alternative rather than take the mirrorless market by storm. In this regard it certainly meets the mirrorless brief.
DIALLED UP
Like the E-M10 II, the EOS M5 is a pretty-looking thing. It’s styled like a mini D-SLR – perhaps there’s no surprise here – but with a good-sized handgrip and a swag of external dials, including one for setting exposure compensation.
There’s an extra control wheel located on the top panel called the ‘Quick Control Dial’ which is multifunctional and is switched between functions via a button in its centre. The defaults are for ISO and white balance plus, with manual exposure control, manual aperture setting. Additional functions can be added, namely mode selection for the metering, autofocusing and drive options. The quick switching between the ISO and WB settings is pretty handy in the field, and then the dial itself is used to make the adjustments. There’s extensive scope for customising the external controls, including the other dials and the four quadrants of the rearpanel navigator so the M5 can be set up to avoid needing a trip to the menus. It also has a ‘Quick Set’ control screen – which itself can be customised – with function tiles arranged either side of the live view image. It’s made even more useful via touch operations which are fully implemented on the M5’s
THE TOUCH SCREEN IS GREAT FOR THOSE USERS WHO LIKE DOING THINGS THIS WAY, BUT THE EXTERNAL CONTROLS WORK EFFICIENTLY ENOUGH TOO, SO TRADITIONALISTS WILL FEEL AT HOME
TFT LCD monitor panel, including autofocusing and shutter release. As noted earlier, this is nice big 8.1 cm display with a resolution of 1.62 megadots and good range of adjustment for tilt (including, ahem, downwards through 180 degrees for taking you-know-whats). The EVF is a little less impressive being a tad on the small side with 0.62x magnification, but it’s still a bright and breezy 2.36 megadots OLED-type display which refreshes at 120 fps to minimise lag. A proximity sensor on the eyepiece enables auto switching between the viewfinder and the monitor screen, or manual switching can be assigned to one of the customisable keys.
The bodyshell is polycarbonate and feels very well screwed together. The pop-up flash occupies the central housing and various connections are located on either side of the body. The battery and memory card share the same compartment in the baseplate which means accessing either may be tricky – or impossible – when the camera is mounted on a tripod plate. The lens mount is Canon’s EF-M fitting which is exclusive to the mirrorless models, but after a slow start the range of compatible lenses is increasing – including the excellent 28mm f3.5 true macro with built-in LED lighting and optical stabilisation – and there’s an adaptor for EF/EF-S optics. However, the M5 body is so compact and lightweight it’s easily overbalanced by the bigger D-SLR lenses.
PIXELS & PROCESSING
On the inside is the same 22.3x14.9 mm CMOS sensor as is used in the 80D with a total pixel count of 25.8 million, but it’s mated with Canon’s later-generation ‘DiG!C 7’ processor which delivers, among other things, continuous shooting at 9.0 fps.
The effective pixel count is 24.2 million, giving a maximum image size of 6000x4000 pixels. There’s
a choice of four image sizes for JPEG capture with two levels of compression and crops for the 4:3, 16:9 and 1:1 aspect ratios. Unlike with the 80D, RAW images are captured in the maximum size only, but still with 14-bit colour. The RAW+JPEG capture can be configured for any size JPEG.
An optical low-pass filter is retained to counter moiré effects, and the native sensitivity range now spans all the way from ISO 100 to 25,600 (which is an extension setting on the 80D). The memory card slot is for the SD format with support for UHS-I speed SDHC and SDXC types.
The processing options for JPEGs are pure EOS D-SLR, starting with a set of eight ‘Picture Style’ presets which include the later Fine Detail mode (first seen on the EOS 5Ds models) and an Auto setting. The adjustable picture parameters also include the newer tweaks for more control over sharpness which are labelled Strength, Fineness and Threshold. There are also adjustments for colour saturation, hue and contrast while the Monochrome preset replaces the first two with B&W contrast filters and toning effects. Up to three user-defined ‘Picture Styles’ can be created and stored in-camera.
There’s a selection of eight ‘Creative Filter’ effects which are accessed from the main mode dial and serve as standalone fully automatic modes for image capture. However, with the exception of the HDR option, all are available post-capture as incamera editing functions. HDR capture is only available on the EOS M5 as a ‘Creative Filter’, but at least it’s still proper triple-shot exposures which are subsequently merged in-camera, and there’s a choice of additional effects called Art Standard, Art Vivid, Art Bold and Art Embossed.
Dynamic range issues can still be addressed using Canon’s ‘Auto Lighting Optimiser’ (ALO) processing – as per all the EOS D-SLRs – or the alternative ‘Highlight Tone Priority’ (HTP) processing. The main difference between the two options is that the latter only corrects for the highlights and so leaves the shadows unchanged.
Selectable in-camera lens corrections are provided for vignetting, chromatic aberrations and diffraction with, most likely, that for distortion continually operating in the background.
Looking Sharp
As noted earlier, the EOS M5’s sensor employs Canon’s ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’ design which employs a pair of photodiodes at each pixel point. The second set is for sensorbased phase-difference detection autofocusing which obviously really comes into its own with a mirrorless camera, delivering impressive speed and improved subject tracking reliability. The latter is also helped by the system’s 80 percent coverage of the frame.
Up to 49 points are available for individual selection, but the M5 lacks the various ‘Zone’ area options which are provided with the 80D’s optical AF system. However, there is a ‘Smooth Zone’ mode which encompasses a cluster of nine points and automatically selects however many are required by the subject matter. Very usefully, the ‘Smooth Zone’ can be moved or positioned via touch control with autofocusing performed at the same time… and virtually instantaneously too. In the single-point mode the focusing zone to be adjusted to one of two sizes, although even the biggest is still quite small. Face recognition AF is also available.
A magnified image – either 5x or 10x – is available with both AF and MF operation and there’s also a focus peaking display in a choice of colours and intensities to further assist with the latter. In practice, there’s not a lot to complain about here, and the ‘Smooth Zone’ area mode proves to be pretty clever,
THE M5’S ‘DUAL PIXEL CMOS’ AUTOFOCUSING IS TRULY FAST AND VERY RELIABLE, NO MATTER WHAT THE SUBJECT’S SIZE OR POSITION IN THE FRAME.
THE EOS M5 PROVES THAT CANON CAN BUILD A COMPETENT MIRRORLESS CAMERA AND, ON BALANCE, IT’S A TRULY DELIGHTFUL MACHINE THAT’S VERY ENJOYABLE TO USE.
varying selectivity and coverage to match the subject (i.e. if it can’t get a fix with one point, it keeps increasing the focusing area until it does).
The fastest continuous shooting speed of 9.0 fps is achieved with the autofocusing fixed to the first frame, but the M5 still manages a respectable 7.0 fps with frame-byframe AF adjustment.
Exposure metering is also sensor-based with the option of multi-zone evaluative, centreweighted average, selective area and spot measurements. The program and semi-auto exposure control modes are supplemented by an AE lock, up to +/-3.0 EV of compensation and auto bracketing over three frames with up to +/-2.0 EV of adjustment. Auto bracketing can be combined with exposure compensation settings to give a maximum possible adjustment of 5.0 EV in either direction.
Nine subject programs are available for manual selection or there’s a ‘Scene Intelligent Auto’ mode which automatically determines whether you’re shooting people or scenes and the lighting conditions.
What is called the ‘Creative Auto’ mode on the EOS 80D becomes ‘Creative Assist’ on the EOS M5, but is essentially the same thing. Exposure control is still fully automatic, but with the provision of basic overrides for depth-of-field, brightness, contrast, saturation and hue (a.k.a. colour tone). Plus you can switch to B&W capture with the choice of sepia, blue, purple or green toning. ‘Creative Assist’ is essentially training wheels for the step up to using the standard ‘PASM’ control modes and the ‘Creative Style’ presets.
The M5’s built-in flash is pretty low powered with a metric guide number of just five at ISO 100, but it has all the important modes including slow speed sync and first/second curtain sync switching. There’s no provision for manually adjusting the output. The maximum sync speed is 1/200 second and the full shutter speed range is 30-1/4000 second. As on Canon’s D-SLRs, there’s an ‘electronic first curtain’ (i.e. the sensor) which helps reduce vibrations, but no fully sensor-based operation for silent shooting. The white balance control options are pretty much standard fare with the option of manual colour temperature setting, but no bracketing and no choice of auto correction modes (i.e. for maintaining a warmer tone).
As noted at the start of this review, it’s all the little frills that have been deleted in all sorts of areas that make the M5 less capable overall than the EOS 80D despite costing the same.
IN THE HAND
It’s a bit of a pity because the basics are all absolutely spot on… including the size, styling and handling. It feels great in the hand and the ergonomics promote both comfort and efficiency. The touch screen is great for those users who like doing things this way, but the external controls work efficiently enough too, so traditionalists will feel at home too.
Both the EVF and the monitor displays can be configured with a dual-axis level display, real-time histograms (either brightness or RGB channels) and guide grids. The ‘Quick Set’ menu is also displayed in both so you can make adjustments when using the EVF, but via the conventional methods. As mentioned earlier, the ‘Quick Set’ screen can be customised to include only the settings you want.
The M5’s menu system is pure EOS D-SLR which means individually tabbed chapters and pages which are selected individually rather than via continuous scrolling. The front input wheel (or navigator pad) cycles through the tabs, the Quick Control Dial (or the rear input wheel) through each page. While you need to use two controls, navigation can ultimately be quicker especially when moving between chapters.
Another Canon-esque idiosyncrasy is the need to first press the ‘Set’ button in order to access sub-menus and settings – as well as to subsequently confirm any action – rather than the more commonly used right-click.
The playback screens include a thumbnail with either just a brightness histogram or accompanied by the RGB channel graphs as well. You can also add the active focusing point (s), a highlight alert and a guide grid which are available for the full screen playback image too. There’s a choice of four thumbnail pages (for six, 12, 42 or 110 images), zooming (from 2.0x to 10x) and a slide show with adjustable image display times and a selection of transitions. Additionally, the slide show can be set to only replay selected images – for example, according to the date of capture, the folder name or the star rating. The touchscreen controls allow for faster browsing and the selection of a thumbnail while the thumband-forefinger pinch or spread actions transition all the way through the smallest thumbnails to the maximum magnification.
The in-camera editing functions can be accessed via a conventional menu or a ‘Quick Set’ menu with the convenience of easy selection via the touch screen. In addition to most of the ‘Creative Filter’ effects, the options here include resizing, cropping, red-eye correction, photobook set-up and RAW-to-JPEG conversion.
Canon has supplemented the M5’s WiFi to include the Smart Bluetooth ‘always on’ connectivity – the tech Nikon markets as ‘SnapBridge’ – which adds to the wireless control options with your smartphone (including activating WiFi). When you use WiFi from the camera, there’s the convenience of quick NFC-enabled hook-ups and the Canon Camera Connect app (which supports both Android and iOS) allows for extensive remote control capabilities.
Speed and Performance
Loaded with our reference SD memory card – Lexar’s 128 GB SDXC UHS-II/U3 (Speed Class 3) ‘2000x’ device – the EOS M5 captured a burst of 31 JPEG/large/ fine images in 3.581 seconds which represents a shooting speed of 8.65 fps. This isn’t very far off Canon’s quoted spec and the burst length is actually five frames longer. The test files had an average size of 10.0 MB.
We’ve already commented about the speed of the M5’s autofocusing and it’s worth repeating here that it’s truly fast and very reliable, no matter what the subject’s size or position in the frame.
Canon has gone straight to the top of the class in terms of mirrorless camera AF performance and, if ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’ wasn’t actually developed with this application ultimately in mind, the ‘by-product’ of the desire to make live view work better in D-SLRs has paid off handsomely.
With 24.2 MP on tap, the M5 delivers richly detailed images with lots of crisply-defined details and nicely smooth tonal gradations. The best-quality JPEGs look very good indeed, but especially so when using the Fine Detail ‘Creative Style’ which appears to apply more intelligent sharpening and noise reduction.
Colours are well saturated, but not overdone, and the dynamic range is exceptional up to ISO 1600. Noise is well managed also up to ISO 1600 with both the colour saturation and sharpness holding together enough to enable decent sized enlargements. From ISO 3200 upward though, definition is progressively reduced and colour (chroma) noise manifests itself as unpleasant blotchiness in the areas of continuous tone so the two highest sensitivity settings are really out of play.
Nevertheless, the EOS M5 is still a competent high ISO performer while, up to ISO 1600, the JPEG image quality is truly excellent. As with all Canon’s D-SLRs, yet more can be squeezed out of the RAW files – including the dynamic range – with postcamera processing.
The Verdict
Sooooo… the EOS M5 proves that Canon can build a competent mirrorless camera and, on balance, it’s a truly delightful machine that’s very enjoyable to use and delivers excellent results.
However, it’s let down by the many little omissions that are, nonetheless, often wanted by the more adventurous photographer. If you’re currently running an EOS 80D or something higher, you may well want to wait for whatever comes next which is likely to be loaded to the gunwales with highend goodies. However, if you really want a Canon-badged mirrorless camera right here, right now – and one that is still very capable in all the important areas – then the M5 fits the bill.
If you’re currently outside the Canon EOS clan – and so the branding is less important – then the M5 is a bit on the pricey side, especially compared to the rival Micro Four Thirds models from either Olympus or Panasonic (and particularly the superb Lumix G85). In the ‘APS-C’ sensor category, better value can be had from both Fujifilm and Sony so it’s down to whether you’re happy to pay a premium for the Canon badge. The EOS M5 certainly has a more up-market feel and its smallness is remarkable which is undoubtedly a key attraction, along with the excellent control ergonomics, the sensational AF performance and the very pleasing image quality. Has Canon done enough with the M5? Well, even with all the cheaper alternatives on offer, we’d still have one.