A great camera if you want to get started in photography

Welcome to the forum.

Quite comprehensive, but I have a few comments;

canonmcameras wrote:

I bought my M3 when they first became available internationally. Canon was not selling M3's in the US so I bought mine on eBay from a seller in Japan for $493 back in April 2015. In 2019 these are available used for $100-$200.

Here is a short list of the pros and cons for the entire M series including the M3, M5, M6, and M50.

Pros

1. Image quality looks great. I’ve enlarged pix to 24x36 and they look great. Not as great as my full frame 6D but still impressive. 12x18 prints are indistinguishable from a full frame DSLR.
2. Easy to understand UI (use a Sony A6000 or A6300 and you’ll understand)
3. No need to lock up the mirror! (Okay, true of all mirrorless cameras but still one less thing to do when shooting landscapes and macro shots)
4. Light and small enough you can carry 3 extra lenses and the tripod in the same bag.
5. Small and light batteries. Only one extra is necessary and rarely do I need the extra battery on a shoot since I get 400+ shots

I have 2 spares for my M5 (and M3 before that) - it depends how much you shoot, but you may get caught short with only one. Battery life isn't that great.

1. The LCD updates the image as you change the exposure comp. Way cool
2. The LCD quality. (I didn’t notice how good this was until I shot with an A7r)
3. Tiltable LCD.
4. Prices of the lenses are generally about $300 each. This is half of what Fuji X-T2 lenses will cost you.
5. EF-M lenses are quite good. All metal barrel construction, IS, optical quality

Only the early EF-M lenses have a metal body. The newer lenses have a plastic body.

1. EF adaptor only $50 at bandh. It works great. I used it for my 100 Macro, but other than that, the EF-M lens lineup works fine for me and don’t need the adaptor

M3 specific

1. The camera strap hooks are flat and non intrusive.
2. Price $479 body only! A M5 body is $979, T6i $749, T5i $649, SL1 $400 so $479 is a steal. When traveling through a country where my dslr setup costs more than the average worker makes in two years, I get concerned. Now I only carry $2000 worth of gear with me instead of $5000+ Now that the M3 is discontinued, $100-300 for the body is common. Note that these prices have all changed since 2015 when I wrote this.

I bought my M3 + 18-55mm in June 2016 for the equivalent of US$295 (with a Canon Australia cashback). You would be insane to pay that much now.

1. Record and play buttons are recessed too much so I have to use my thumbnail to press them
2. The shot to shot time peak is about 4 FPS but then slows down after shooting continuously for a couple of seconds. If you plan to capture images of kids running around or sports photography then I don't recommend this camera.
3. Remote control. Since there is no wired remote, the wireless is the only alternative and it works fine.

Cons

1. Extra battery is $57 This price is pretty standard though for an extra battery regardless of brand and model. The M10 battery the LP-E12 is $59. The Canon LP-E6 is $64. This is the battery that almost all their DSLRs use. The Canon LP-E8 is $47 (T2i-T5i). The LP-E17 battery is compatible with the M3, M5, M6 and the T6i, T6s, T7i, and T77D. I don't recommend non Canon batteries.
2. The iOS app - I can’t get it to work.

Worked fine for me with M3, M5, 70D, 6D ii etc.

1. Needs a lens longer than 200mm. As of 2019 a lens longer than 200mm is not available.

An EF-M lens longer than 200mm is not available. Longer adapted lenses available.

Other cons;

1. No EVF - LCD struggles in bright light.
2. AF is pretty slow on M3.
3. M3 is woeful with some Canon EF & EF-S lenses. It really struggled with my 100-400L.
4. The flash was pretty weak.
5. The camera performance / speed was not great. Burst rates were poor, and even AEB was too slow for HDR if any movement (even clouds moving).
6. The EC dial on mine moved much too easily. I often bumped it going in or out of a bag.

What are the cool features of the M line?

1. Built in level and grid lines. This helps composition
2. Battery lasts over 400 shots, a whole day of shooting for me. No flash, minimal review.
3. Pretty quiet
4. Flip up and down and out screen is really useful. It flips up over the top so you can mount your M3 on a tripod and shoot selfies and can help you compose shots when mounted on the tripod. The flip screen is also useful for macro shots, low angle shots, high angle shots, and shooting video incognito.
5. Focus peaking and manual focus! This is really required for macro shooting and works great. Play around with the setting and colors to get a feel for it. The various colors may seem like a useless fluff feature but in reality, depending on the color of what's in your composition you will find that one color stands out much better than others. If there is low color contrast meaning that the colors look similar, it will be difficult to tell where the focus peaking is and what is in focus. This is one of the most useful features in a world consumed by marketing frames per second, number of autofocus points, number of megapixels, and 4k capability.
6. Compatibility with EF lenses. No other mirrorless system has this large a lens selection available. The EF to EF-M adaptor can be bought on sale for only $50 and opens your M system up to all the EF lenses.

As above - some compatibility with EF & EF-S lenses. M3 may be the worst M series body for this.

Who should buy this camera?

If you are an iPhone shooter who wants to move up and get into photography I highly recommend this camera and all 3 zooms

there are 5 zooms now I think (including the discontinued 18-55mm.

and the 28mm macro.

The 22mm is worth having as a faster prime just because it is small and cheap with good IQ.

Inexpensive and high IQ with iOS like interface of a touch screen and big LCD to compose your shots. What can you do that you can’t do with your iPhone?

1. Optical zooming! If you want a shot other than the fixed focal length the the iPhone, approx ??mm in 35mm terms then this is a great step up.
2. Interchangeable lenses! You can shoot a super wide angle 11-22, or a long telephoto 55-200. The 28mm macro is especially fun and unique and only $300! Macro photography is fun with this lens!
3. Accessory on and off camera flashes to create interesting shots.

or

The DSLR shooter who wants something lighter to travel with. The question the DSLR shooter will ask, "Is the smaller size, bulk, and weight worth it? Specifically,

1. Is the IQ as good?
2. Does it AF fast enough?
3. Does it shoot fast enough?
4. Are there enough lenses?

The answers depend on how and what you shot. If you shoot mostly sports, wildlife, or any other type of action then no, it's AF and FPS are way too slow. The IQ up to 12x18 is so similar to full frame I would just get an M series unless you plan to enlarge images larger than 12x18. The lens selection isn't massive like the EF line, but I've found the available lenses handle all my needs. I highly recommend the 28 macro, 11-22, 18-55, 55-200. They are all less than $300 so very affordable. All metal construction. The macro even has a built in light.

Competition:

At $300-$400 there is none!

Nikon oddly enough does not make an APS-C camera.

Maybe you were referring to a MIRRORLESS APS-C camera ? Nikon makes several APS-C DSLR cameras.

$550 Sony A6000 Poor UI, Ergonomics. I bought one and shot for it for a few months. Did not like anything about it except the USB charging. Sony’s are great cameras for a spec comparison test like the ones dppreview and cnet put in their articles. One spec that is difficult to measure objectively and hard to assess from a webpage is usability. I did not like the Sony A6000 at all. The menus were not intuitive and I had to search for items that I can find immediately with a Nikon or Canon. The camera just didn’t feel right to me.

2019 update. M3's are available used for $100-$200. A great deal though I suspect most people will be disappointed with the shot to shot times and AF speed. The M50 is a much better all around camera with the fully articulating screen, fast shot to shot times, fast AF, and an intuitive UI.

Agreed. The newer DPAF M series bodies (M5, M6, M50 etc) are a significant improvement over the M3.

Colin