Canon EOS M3 mirrorless digital camera [2015]

OK, I’ll admit I’m a Canon fan-boy. There it is, its out there.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me just say I LOVE my M3. Its my go-to camera when I need something small, or if I’m going on vacation and don’t want to lug around my 5DIII. That said, the quality of the pictures is at best 80% as good as the 5DIII. It just doesn’t have the same dynamic range or noise control. I do enjoy the flip over screen and wifi however, and have been known to take selfies then post to Facebook while still at an event, in low light environments with the 22mm f/2 lens.

The adaptability to use other Canon lenses is a red herring. I have both the official Canon adapter with autofocus, as well as third party adapters without any wiring (needed to use adapted manual lenses). I’ve never found any of these to be particularly useful.

I bought new from Japan back when Canon said they would not be selling this in the USA. 6 Months later they started selling them here. I haven’t had any warranty issues so I’m really not worried about it.

I had previously owned the much-maligned EOS-M (original) which introduced the EF-M lens mount. I was quite pleased to see Canon start to get serious with the M3, and now they have released two new models, the M5 and M6.

Program note: this is the camera which has taken most of the camera images on this website.

What’s So Special?

Canon’s first competitive effort at a mirrorless system interchangable lens camera.

Pros

Small size
Beautiful raw files – lots of detail and excellent high ISO performance
Wireless transfer via NFC pairing/local WiFi – it’s easy to upload photos quickly to the web
Dedicated lenses tend to be excellent.

Cons

No 4k video – not that I care, I don’t
Magic Lantern isn’t available for this model
I have a gray market (no warranty) copy. Not a big deal since it didnt break in that magic first year