I wanted to travel a bit lighter on our recent vacation in San Diego, so I brought the M5 I bought earlier this year along with my Tamron 16-300 as my primary solution. I also brought my Sigma 8-16, Canon 50 f/1.8 STM, and 22 f/2 EF-M. At the last minute I threw in my Sigma 50-500 (so much for small and light); we had the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on the agenda, and that would require a long lens. I considered renting a 100-400 and 1.4x TC but ultimately decided that that would be logistically more complicated. In the event, I did find other uses for the 50-500 (mostly passing ships, from our hotel room -- there are some interesting naval ships always passing through San Diego).
I've been an SLR shooter since the film days, and this review is written from that perspective, after about 3500 total frames and 2250 on this trip. My current go-to is a 7DmkII, with a 7D for backup. I did buy an EOS M several years ago when it was dirt cheap. For my purpose, the best use of the EOS M is with the 22 f/2 as a fixed focal length compact. So I'm used to high performance AF and a very responsive body. The M5, of course, is a rather old body, and lack of viewfinder aside, the M6 mkII is perhaps a better camera in a lot of ways. But due to the price and good control functionality it might be used by other SLR shooters as a backup body, so I'm writing this review.
The M5, which was being sold by Canon for less than $400 refurb, wound up being a bit too much to resist, and for all intents and purposes is my first experience with a mirrorless body. So how did it stack up?
It actually overall did quite nicely, with some very real pluses and minuses. The sensor is a bit newer than the 7DmkII -- I think it's basically the same sensor as the 80D -- which performs quite nicely even at high ISO. That was very handy on the USS Midway museum, where light was quite low in spots and there wouldn't have been room for a monopod.
The menu structure is certainly Canon, but the controls feel very different. That's partly because the body is much smaller than the 7D, but the control structure is different in a number of other ways.
Most notably, there are actually four dials on the little body, vs. the two dials on the 7DmkII. This actually allows controlling all of the exposure parameters -- shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and exposure compensation -- without having to press buttons. I particularly like the dedicated exposure compensation dial. Combined with exposure simulation (a no brainer on a mirrorless body, but not something you can do on an SLR unless you're in live view), it makes adjusting to difficult lighting conditions a snap. The only difficulty is that if you're wearing sunglasses -- a must in San Diego during a Santa Ana, even in late October -- "reading" the viewfinder is difficult; the result is that I overexposed a number of shots due to misjudging the EC. If you turn on auto-review, that's less of a problem...but there are problems with that, which I'll get to below.
The obvious question is how does the autofocus compare? For action, it's simply not in the league of the 7D, much less mkII. But that's not what I bought the body for, and I understood that BIF wouldn't be a priority. It did have some problems locking in sometimes, but I eventually got used to it and figured out how to take advantage of what it could do.
What it does have is very good focus peaking, so it's much easier to focus manually than on the 7D, where to get accurate focus it's necessary to put it in live view, in high magnification, and try to judge focus while everything's jiggling around. So that let me get photos like this, of an eagle in a chain link cage, where autofocus would lock in on the chain links. With focus peaking, the contours of the eagle lit up in red when I had it in focus. Straightforward.
Eagle, San Diego Safari Park
In fact, one of the few BIF shots I successfully got was by manual focus.
It was also very useful at night, when I mostly just used MF and relied on focus peaking. I used it more and more as I learned its strength.
The autofocus worked well enough for the most part on artificial "birds" -- helicopters as well as fixed-wing aircraft -- but I did have more misses than I would with the 7DmkII.
What about other aspects of handling? Well, at 6'4" with fairly large hands, the body is quite simply too small for me to hold comfortably, and the touchscreen is a nose magnet. I learned to keep the viewfinder further from my eye than usual to avoid the second problem. The first was a problem. It was a particular problem when I'd inadvertently hit one button or another, most often the video button. The exposure compensation dial was also a finger magnet. I'm nervous about the exposed sensor when removing a lens, and having the sensor unprotected against inadvertent sun exposure, but it does not seem to have suffered ill effects. Also, all of the lenses I used needed an adapter (I never used either of the primes, and the 22 f/2 was the only native EF-M lens I have). It was possible to hand hold the 50-500, even all the way out, although it's a lot more comfortable with a monopod. As for the tilt screen, the cameras I've had with a flip/tilt screen have always felt fragile, but the tilt screen has two robust mount points and feels solid.
I shot one frame on a Sony Alpha a6300 for somebody who wanted a casual portrait with a companion; that body felt much faster.
There are some real implementation issues with the viewfinder and rear LCD panel, though:
- A fast refresh mode (I presume 60 fps) is offered on the LCD, but not the viewfinder. It consumes more battery, but gives a smoother view. I think this would be more useful on the viewfinder than on the rear LCD; when you're trying to track something, it's a lot easier through the viewfinder, and fast refresh would really help.
- When you put your eye (or your hand, or just about anything else) near the viewfinder, the LCD shuts off. Which is OK, but the touch screen doesn't, which is not such a good thing. It's just as sensitive to noses or cheeks as it is to fingers. But if you're looking through the viewfinder and deliberately touch the screen, you don't really know just where you've touched, right?
- Auto-review applies to both the LCD and the viewfinder. I'd like to have review on the LCD, but not the viewfinder. The problem is that the shot stays visible in the viewfinder for however many seconds you set, so you can't see what's going on without pressing the shutter button again, which introduces delay. I realize that's a matter of taste, but I would have liked Canon to offer separate options for viewfinder and display.
The camera was reasonably fast and responsive -- again, not 7DmkII class, and not Sony A6300 either, based on a grand total of one frame -- with all of the lenses I used (Sigma 8-16 and 50-500) except the Tamron 16-300, where it would sometimes hesitate. I believe that's a lens issue; I have the same thing happen on the 7DmkII. It isn't consistent, and I'm not sure exactly what conditions it happens. It might be in bright light. Whatever it is, it's frustrating pushing on the shutter button and it hesitating for half a second or so. This happens in AF and MF, with or without VC (Tamron's name for image stabilization). It's not a matter of the slow (f/6.3) long end; the Sigma 50-500 is just as slow, but it snaps into focus and the shutter releases quickly.
So in summary, I recommend this for non-action photographers who want a smaller, lighter body to carry around. I wouldn't pay $800 for it, but if you can find it refurb for $400 it's a nice bargain. If you like having separate dials for each exposure variable, you'll like this a lot. If you want to shoot birds in flight, though, find another solution or become really good with manual focus -- which is possible on this body. The responsive and accurate focus peaking makes it a good choice (by APS-C standards, at any rate) for still life or portrait where you want very precise focus control.
If you want it as a second or third body that's not going to be used for action, it's a good choice. For example, I shoot a lot of basketball with a 70-200 and 17-55 f/2.8 lenses. But during timeouts, I like to shoot the team huddle with my 8-16. It's a good choice for that, especially with the tilt screen.
