M5 first impression (vs M3 and 5DIII, day dos)

So after two days with the camera (see day uno impressions if you haven't already down in the forum a bit), I've had a bit of time to future explore it in a few regards and have a couple more thoughts.

First up, forgot to mention, very important, the shutter is a much nicer tick, this has been hashed over before on the forum, but it's worth repeating as it's a good step forward in terms of pleasant-ness, if there is such a word.

In regards to the menus being slow and entering image playback being slow, I have determined, actually, the phenomena is tied to the camera using continuous AF (which you can turn on/off), which many reviews highly recommend using for best AF results. Actually, the jury is still out on my end as to whether or not it's a good thing as having it on really does make a significant dent in battery life, and, actually can hurt you in low light conditions as the camera continues to hunt when you want to initiate a shot, hence it's a bad idea in all conditions and I might recommend allocating a C1 or C2 to low light with it off if your intent is to leave it on most of the time.

The bootup time of the M5 may be 1.0 seconds, but, the wakeup from low power while it’s on is much closer to instant, this is great as the M3 was the same near 2 seconds whether off or low power mode, which made it silly as it took 2 seconds to come out of low power, only to have it turn off, and then you press it again to turn it on; the on/off switch fixed this on the M5 as I mentioned before, but the wake time being near instant is very welcome.

The built-in flash is nice; it produces less harsh results than prior Canon onboard flashes in the past, which is good, because the M5’s built-in flash cannot bounce which was a downer on my end as I infrequently, but, consistently used it.

Speaking of flash, the M5 is finally E-TTL II complaint, and it shows as even the built-in flash is instant to evaluate and fire whereas the M3 had a substantial delay with both the built-in flash, and the 270EX II I tried on it. The 270EX II and other flashes will behave DSLR-like on the M5… About time as it made external flashes very cumbersome to use on prior M’s.

Some recommendations / thoughts:

I’d assign AF Method and Drive Mode to the Main dial, just my preference, with AF method priority order.

M-fn I’d advise assigning to AI servo if not otherwise assigned.

I’ve noted today with doing more tracking testing, that single point AF is the most productive AF method for tracking results. Even though I love zones and cross points coming from a 5DIII, if you want the best results from the servo, use single point, but, it’s difficult to keep the single point on your subject, hence I’d use smooth zone on difficult to track (keep the point on the subject) subjects, and single point for difficult for the camera to keep up with (objects moving towards the camera, which is a weak spot for AF systems). Single point AF + servo yielded my M5 conquering the evil kid in swing test, and kid riding back directly at me in bike (roughly 6mph).

The image quality of the M5, which I’ve reserved judgment on my first day impressions, I’d say is very similar to the M3, with better Dynamic range (less blowouts), more accurate white balance and color rendition. ISO and resolution are on par with the M3, maybe a hair better on the ISO, jury is still out on that one, but it’s not any worse I’ve concluded which is great as that was one of the M3’s strongpoints was it’s ISO/noise performance.

GPS logging is a battery drain on your cell phone, heads up.

Video quality is on par with the M3, I'd say it's a hair better due to improved IS and AF, but otherwise the quality of the video and audio is virtually identical, which is to say nothing to write home about, vs the M2 on the other hand, had wonderful audio fidelity and more crisp color tones due to the additional bitrate Canon allowed it except the Hybrid CMOS AF II was hit and miss unfortunately to keep it from being a video tool. The M5 will get video footage, check, but not high def, even though 1080 is considered high def, I wouldn't call what comes off the M5 high def.

In my wife's words, the M5 is the camera Canon should've given us, before now. It's a winner in my book, no surprise. I'd buy it again, it's a solid upgrade for any M3 owner, or even M or M2 or M10 owner. Has better IQ than any powershot, and you can bring along your Canon optics. Look forward to what Canon has in store for 2017, and getting my 28 macro back to see if I like it better on the M5 as I'm not a macro person.

My newer v30 card arrives tomorrow, I'll bench it and report back if fairs any better than the older non-v30.