A quick hands-on: Canon EOS M mirrorless camera

All of the parameters and settings can be modified completely on the touchscreen and Canon has made the necessary tweaks to the user interface to enable this. For example, there’s no need to scroll and the pages of the menus are lined up horizontally, one after another.

Very conventional Canon UI, but tweaked for the touchscreen

The user interface is intuitive and it’s very similar to the ones found on the Canon’s recent DSLRs. It’s extremely quick and the gestures used to zoom into the preview images works really well. From what we could make out, it’s a very usable touchscreen and product. Of course, this is one of the early sample units we were using so it’s hard to comment on its performance. But from what we could see, focussing took hardly any time.

Flash adaptor mounted and a 50mm lens in place

The EOS M has no optical viewfinder, and this is going to annoy some serious photographers. Thankfully, the screen is clear, it’s vibrant and we noticed no lag that you normally see when you try and bump ISO levels. There’s no built-in flash either, which means you need to use some of the accessories that Canon has to offer. There’s a regular flash mount but Canon also has specific flash units designed for this, but you should be able to use any of the other Canon compatible lenses as well. Canon wants to target a number of categories to cater to everyone from enthusiasts to professionals who want a second, portable camera to even lifestyle users. For this, there’s also an add-on grip that fits into the tripod mount.

The stock kit lens, an 18-55mm IS enabled

There’s no official word on the pricing but if US dollar prices are to be calculated, one can expect the camera to end up selling at roughly Rs. 50,000 a piece. We’re eager, as you might be, to see what the EOS M can really do. We think the price of this particular model is high, but it’ll still have its customers. We inquired whether cheaper models were coming and we were told “We don’t know”. I guess we all know what that means.