Eos M Review...High ISO Noise Tests (Part Three)

Canon 18mp Aps-C size  sensor, high iso noise and some suggestions on how to eliminate it.

Part One of my review can be found here http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-canon-eos-m-reviewpart-one.html

Part Two can be found here..http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/05/eos-m-reviewpart-two.html

In essence high ISO files are just underexposed images which are then corrected in software. It really just means that the dark image is made lighter via the camera software so that it looks correctly exposed. Just like in the days of film,  underexposed shadow areas look gray and grainy. The better the sensor and software the better these underexposed images look like. Software plays a big part and can best be illustrated by the fact that the first Sony 24 megapixel sensor as used in the Sony Alfa 900 and  the Nikon D3X, a camera generation ago, but where Nikon managed to get vastly superior high iso files than Sony could.

The larger the sensor the less noise it produces and the smaller the sensor the more noise it has. Thus a full frame sensor like that of the Eos 5D mk2 has less noise than the APS-C sensor of the Eos M. As more and more  pixels are crammed into the sensor it has a bearing on the noise levels and thus, pratically, an 18mp Aps-C sensor has inherently more noise than that of the same size sensor but with fewer pixels or a full frame sensor with the same number of pixels.

Every new camera that's announced has more pixels than the one it replaces. Pixel counts are market driven because we the consumer look at pixels like we look at the cubic inches of a car engine, the more must be the better...

One exception is the Canon Eos line of camera which has had the same sensor for the last few years with only minor tweaks for each new successive model. Canon is known for their 'noisy' sensors, especially shadow noise at higher iso's and also the 'banding' found in some sensors as compared to the new sensors from Sony and Fuji...but that doesnt mean that the sensors from Canon are useless, it just means we have to find ways of working around that...and fortunately there are a couple of noise reduction programs that can help.

As mentioned before this is my first high megapixel Aps-C sized sensor. My Canon Eos 20D and 40D 'only' had 8 and 10 megapixels respectively and were know for their 'clean' sensor design. My Leica X1 'only' has a 12 megapixel sensor, apparently identical to  the Nikon D300.

More pixels add more resolution but also more noise at higher ISO's...

First Test

For my first test I chose a dark corner of my office and photographed my gardener, Exodus standing against a grey filing cabinet. Exodus is from Malawi and the further north one goes the darker the skins.

Lighting was a mix of daylight, fluorescent and incandescent. I used the white light switch for neutral balance. I used Lightroom 4 to process the raw files and used my standard settings for sharpnening, of Sharpness 50, Radius 0,5 and Detail 11.

At 800 iso noise is really not intrusive and I would use it without any noise correction. At 1600 iso noise starts to creep in and at 3200 iso noise is quite visible but at 6400 and 12800 it becomes, imo, quite unacceptably noisy. I would use 1600iso at a push but 3200 is already too noisy for my own preferences. I regularly use my  Eos 5d2 at 1600 and 3200iso...With the Eos M I would be more reluctant....

Below is the test images. On left the image before before noise reduction and on right the same image  after applying noise reduction. I used a very useful plugin from Topaz called Denoise. It has standard settings like Raw -lightest, -light , -moderate etc which can also be tweaked to taste. Before opening the images up in 'Denoise' I reduced the sharpness settings to 'Zero' in LR. After 'de-noising' I dialed in a small amount of sharpening in LR4.

All the images posted here we run through the Topaz Denoise plugin as described above. Generally I used the 'lightest' noise reduction setting. If some luminance noise is still visible its because if I reduced it more, the sharpness would be affected. Noise reduction setting are very much a matter of taste and each one will probably find their own balance between acceptable luminace noise and sharpness. Chroma noise is much easier to correct and I just left the LR4 as is before running it through Topaz Denoise.

Luminance noise is the big culprit here and it looks a bit like 'grain'. The higher the ISO the more luminance noise. Interestingly the detail in the fabric of the shirt still looks fine even after the noise reduction...it is the face that starts to loose detail and texture and at higher ISO's, after noise reduction, starts to look mushy' and with a blurring away of details.

800 iso

                                       

800 iso cropped to same size as images below.

   

ISO 1600

3200 ISO

6400 ISO

12800 ISO

Another test.

The image below is typical of the type of image that I would do indoors handheld. For the image to be sharp I would need a shutter speed of at least 1/30sec, in this case 1/60sec. Aperture was set here at  f3,5 which will ensure a little more depth of field than wide open so that the eyes and a bit more will at least be in focus. To achieve these setting I needed an ISO of 1600.

At 1600 ISO the eyebrows are also relatively sharp and at 100% enlargement one can just see individual hairs. At higher ISO's the detail starts to blur, so it looks like 1600iso is about the max for close up detail images like this one. The more expansive the subject  matter the lower the ISO would have to be to still capture fine detail.

In Post Processing I still 'pushed' the exposure by another 2/3 stop to see how the shadow areas would hold up. They look fine to me. To retain highlight details I pulled over the 'highlight' slider to '-100', which  makes the image slightly 'flat' looking.

I then reduced the noise via topaz Denoise and chose the 'Raw Light' preset which is one up from 'Raw Lightest'.

Back in LR, I increased the 'clarity' by +50 to bring some 'punch' back into the image and sharpened the image a little bit for the first time. This is typically how I would normally process an image like this...

1600 iso

1600 iso.

'Real world' Test

Ok one can just do so many boring test images...so here are couple of 'real world' samples...btw somehow 'real world' has become a byword for something that is inherently of greater value and closer to the truth....I am not sure if I can agree with that but here goes....

Barbora Tellinger a well know jazz singer and lecturer her in my part of the world asked me to take some photographs of her last concert at the Musaion music center of the University of Pretoria. I was asked not to leave my seat as they were also making a video of the proceedings. I sat a couple of rows from the front in an isle seat so that I could set up my tripod. To get close up images I needed my Canon 70-300L zoom and attached it to the Eos M via the lens adapter. I shot at a variety of Iso's up to 6400. Initially I had set the camera to 'Scene Intelligent Auto' a sort of super 'program' function. The pics came out fine with good exposure of the white skinned singer against the dark background. Afterwards I changed the setting to Aperture priority AE so that I could ahve ore control over the aperture and ISO. In hindsight the 'Scene Intelligent Auto' worked best and it just goes to show that these cameras are made to take the 'thinking' away from the operator...and leave it all to the camera. and actually it works very well and under many conditions the camera does just fine. This is the way it was designed to work best and its when we want to impose our will on the camera where things become more difficult and cumbersome. 

So the moral of the Eos M? Just leave it to the camera to do your thinking....it will probably lead to good if not better image quality than one can do by trying to control the camera too much...

What these images have clearly shown me is that the practical limits of high ISO is determined by the subject matter and the size of the object being photographed...as you will see ISO6400 may be ok for a closeup of a singer on stage but its definitely not ok for 'landscape type' images...

ISO 5000 f5.6 1/400sec after noise reduction and detail below..

ISO 3200 and detail below

ISO 1600 detail and original below

ISO 3200 detail and original full frame file below. 

I made a beautiful detailed  610mm x 430mm print of this image.
The file was good enough to handle extensive post processing...

Detail ISO 1600, quality starting to drop, original below. Moire in shirts

The Owl House, Nieu Bethesda

I am currently busy with my ongoing 'review' of the Canon Eos M, but I thought I would take a break and post some images from a remarkable house in Nieu Bethesda...

For the past few years in December, when the whole country goes on holiday, my wife Cheryl, and I go on a photographic journey. We pick an area that we can reach after a days drive and then spend another day or two driving around. Last year ( December 2012 ) we drove to Smithfield,  Hofmeyer and Nieu Bethesda. Our last stop was in Nieu Bethesda where we wanted to celebrate out anniversary. Nieu Bethesda is a bit more touristy and it has many many guesthouses and also a restaurant or two..

I picked up a potential problem with my car, after having had it serviced just a week before! Funny how cars pick up problems only after the service...! Anyway I had to stay another night in Nieu Bethesda, which was quite nice and cancel my night in Jagersfontein at short notice. The owner of the guesthouse in Jagersfontein, Karin Duvenhage kindly offered to keep my deposit for a year! How is that for service!

So after a long trip from Pretoria to Smithfield and then Hofmeyer I ended up in Nieu Bethesda for two nights.

As most of us know the main attraction in Nieu Bethesda is the Owl house. I have been to Nieu Bethesda before but the last time was about 12 years ago. I visited the Owl house each time but never really took any photographs. This time I visited in the middle of a very hot December afternoon. I quickly walked through the garden and took many photographs but the time of day was just wrong and before I publish any photographs here on my blog of the garden, or 'Camel Yard' and its many cement figures I will have to work extensively on the images via photoshop etc.

The interior was wonderful and a great reprieve from the midday heat. I photograph many interiors professionally but these interior spaces blew me away! They were so colourful and personal...and to think Helen Maartins started the project in the fifties...truly remarkable!

More images from my trip, as usual working backwards, to come...

I used my little Leica X1 with a fixed 35mm equivalent lens for all these available light photographs. Most of the rooms were partially cordoned off and it was quite difficult to get decent angles. As it got quite dark inside I had to bump up the iso sometimes to the maximum of 3200 ( all the images were taken with the iso set between 800 and 3200 ) to prevent camera shake and often shot at the max aperture of f2.8. ( I didn't have a tripod and I wasn't sure if I would be allowed to bring one...I just took it for granted that it would be disallowed. I never thought to ask..... ) Looking at these images at 100% enlargement on my monitor I was quite surprised at the good quality of the files...one can just do sooooo much with digital!

The entrance fee was R80-00 for two (about 8 Euros). The Owl House Foundation can be contacted at 049 8411733, and the international dialing code is +27.

Regards,

Ivan

My Eos M Review...(Part Two)

How does the Eos M handle itself in the street and with some full frame lenses attached via the lens adapter?

To test all of this I drove to a street called Steve Biko road (formerly Voortrekker str) in Pretoria North.

Eos M and 22mm lens, handheld

The area is on the outskirts of Pretoria and is a mixture of residential, light industrial and retail. I feel relatively safe here and I like the 'look' of the place. There has not been much development of late so it reflects quite a bit of the old architecture mixed with more modern architecture and of course the 'modifications' subsequent owners made to the original buildings, sometimes horrendous and often very colourful...unfortunately there were not many people about on the days I chose to go there so I couldn't test my 'street people' skills with my new Eos M. I will leave that test for a next installment of my ongoing review of the Eos M...

Eos M and Ef 40mm f2.8 stm 'pancake' lens.

Initially I wanted to test some lenses with the Adapter Ef to Eos M. I found a nice colourful building with a bit of shade to stand in so that I could see the LCD viewfinder clearly. The 40mm pancake has the same contrast and colour as the 22mm and is also very very sharp. It is easily handholdable even though it does not have IS. On the Eos M the 40mm pancake is equivalent to a 64mm lens.

Eos M and  50mm Mamiya MF shift lens

The 'toy' I really wanted to test was my medium format Mamiya shift lens lens. On my Eos M it is equivalent to an 80mm lens on the 35mm format. Thus a short telephoto but with the added convenience of being able to shift left and right and up and down. In theory a nice lens for architectural detail. I wanted to see how it would perform on the Eos M. 

It is a bit more complicated in that the aperture is not automatic and one has to focus with the lens wide open, do the necessary shifts and then stop down to the chosen aperture, usually from f11 to f22. 

Eos M on Steroids!
 Mamiya 50mm lens and two adapters

On the Eos M the Mamiya 50mm shift exhibits low contrast with some colour shift. One can easily see the difference in the colour of the sky in the images of the 'doggy parlour' posted above,  compared to the Canon lenses. But with an increase in contrast and other tweaks in LR4, its not too far off from the Canon 'look'. It is also not as sharp as the Ef lenses, although it is very sharp on my Mamiya ZD digital medium format camera. But it is sharp enough on the Eos M and I will use it. I bought a Photodiox converted from Amazon to be able to fit it on a Canon and it is even 'chipped' for focus confirmatio on my 5D2, I have not used it much but the R1000-00 price I had to pay to import the adapter was a lot less than the price of a new 45mm Canon tilt and shift at R13000-00! I thought it was worth a try. I need to do some more tests on my 5D2 to see how it works and what the quality is like....but more of that in a future post. 

Perspective corrected with Eos M and 50mm Mamiya shift lens.

Perspective corrected image with Mamiya 50mm shift

No perspective correction, camera tilted up. 22mm lens.

The next part of my test was to see how the Eos M Auto Focus an Auto Exposure modes performed with the 22mm lens in the street under 'normal' shooting conditions and using the Optical Viewfinder. 

The OVF is not as precise as the LCD nor does it show any settings or focus confirmation but its close to a 'normal' dslr viewfinder and it is more steady than holding a camera at arms length trying to focus and frame on a LCd screen. ther eis a 'beeb' when the  camera has found focus so its quite simple to know when to release the shutter. Viewfinders of some sort has been around since the beginning and it is a most elegant solution to a problem. Why Canon has ignored the viewfinder is puzzling but if one looks at other Canon consumer models it would seem that 'the viewfinder' or lack thereof is not high on Canon's list of what makes a 'good' photographers camera. Outside in bright sun light a viewfinder is also the best solution. But fortunately the Eos M has a hot shoe that can take my Leica OVF that frames the 22mm lens accurately. 

1/250 F8  Iso100 Flexizone Multi.
Overall sharpness good for a grab shot  and slow AF

I chose specific Post Processing settings to give me the 'look' I wanted. I am not really one for saturated colours. For this next batch of images made in Steve Biko road I reduced saturation by -40, increased clarity to + 50 and generally overexposed the images to a point just before they 'clipped'. Because of the overexposure I also had to add 'black' to bring some contrast back. Amazingly the Eos M ISO100 files could handle all of this even with the very contrasty noon light.

1/250 F8 Iso100 Flexizone Multi. Once again an overall sharp
image when viewed at 100%

Full AF and exposure.

1/250 f8 Iso100. Fexizone Multi. Focus points on pole but at f8 even the number plates
of cars in background were sharp. Shadows in original were dark but
 even some facial details of people in background  were  visible
after lifting  the shadows in PP.
Enough range to also retain highlights.

I also chose the 'scene intelligent mode' on my Eos M. This is the mode for 'dummies' and very little input from the photographer is needed, allowed or necessary. The camera does everything automatically and optimizes the exposure to obtain 'optimum brightness and contrast' by apparently 'analyzing ' the scene etc.

My reasoning was that the camera was probably optimized for shooting like this as proven by the lack of controls that 'old school photographers' normally used or burying them deep inside a menu system. The camera will even decide where to focus...

1/250 F8 Iso100. FlexiZone Multi. Af points on box and poles in
foreground but background acceptably sharp at F8

1/320 F9 Iso100. Flexizone Multi, focus point on pole in foreground but
 background acceptably sharp when viewed at 100%.

Here I changed Af to single point on red roof. At f11 even foreground is sharp...

1/250 f8 Iso 100. Once again focus points on poles in foreground yet background
 acceptably sharp even at 100%. continuous shooting mode as I
 waited for person in background to walk into the frame.

1/350 f9 Iso100 Fexizone Multi. Good sharpness all over.

I think the Eos M passed this test with flying colours! I walked up and down Steve Biko street for about two hours just photographing like I would normally do, except I didn't have to concentrate on any of the usual settings, like exposure, focus and  aperture for depth of field or not. In other words I used it just like a 'point and shoot', and it worked.

Back home in front of my monitor I could annalize the images at my leisure and see exactly where the camera had focused and which aperture it used.

in the bright light of a sunny day the camera used ISO100 almost all the time with the aperture around F8. In full sun it gave me fast shutter speeds and at F8 the depth of field was tremendous, which is how I like to shoot - lots of depth of field with sharp images.

1/250 f8 iso100. Flexizone Multi. Once again nice and sharp all over.

People often ask me if shooting manual is not more pure and authentic. I don't believe technical issues like focus or exposure has got anything to do with ones vision.  Its like asking if manual shutter cocking or auto shutter cocking has a bearing on the validity of the image. Who cares? Its just a simple technical process that can be handled much faster and most often more accurately by the camera itself. Most cameras have manual setting s that can override the auto settings if one wishes. Any competent photographer will also know when the camera will 'read' a scene incorrectly and adjust for that. But for most of the average scenes photographed by average photographers the camera will decide just nicely, thank you.

.... and if you don't believe me just have a look at the photographs above. Almost all the settings were decided by the camera. All I had to do was frame and press the shutter. And that's the way I like it, and I like the way the Eos M did it.

Part three, high ISO test can be found here...http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/05/eos-m-reviewhigh-iso-noise-tests.html

  Regards, Ivan

My Canon Eos M Review....Part One

Actually its more of a 'first impressions' as I have only had the camera for a few days....

Why?

Since its launch the Eos M has been lambasted in the press for it slow AF. For that reason and also the relatively high price I have not given the camera much thought, but recently the prices for Eos M kits have been marked down considerably. This price reduction and the fact that it will integrate seamlessly with the rest of my Canon kit, made me give the Eos M a closer look. I was hoping for an inexpensive backup camera that's small enough not to take up extra space in my camera bag, but also has good enough quality to keep up with my 5Dmk2. I phoned around and found a dealer that had a kit in stock. I immediately got into my car and drove over to have a look...

Initial impressions were favourable and throwing caution to the wind, I bought the Eos M kit that included the 22mm Ef-M F2 lens, mount adapter for EF to Eos M and  the 90ex speedlite flash that can also work as a 'master' to control my other Canon Speedlites. The price I paid was R6300-00/USD700(considerably less than anything else...  the Leica X1 retails for R24000-00/USD2600! )

I also have two shift lenses a 24mm and 50mm. Having an aps-c size body will give me two extra focal lengths of 38mm and 80mm respectively. As these two lenses are both MF there is no AF to worry about! I am also hoping that the18mp sensor is also much closer in quality to my Eos 5Dmk2, than my existing 'backup', a Eos 40D. And I can clean my sensor.... doesn't sound like a big deal but with my Leica X1 it has to go back to the factory for a sensor clean!

The thing is that with these small cameras there are always advantages and disadvantages. With the disadvantages one just has to find a way to work around them. The Leica X1 also has slow focus,  I think it might even be slower than the Eos M,  but I learned to work around this and eventually the slow AF was no excuse!

The Eos M with a Optical viewfinder from Leica made for the Leica X1 camera. Works just perfectly on the Eos M and the Ef M 22mm F2 lens.

Af.

So lets first start with the main point of concern, the AF.

There are three different ways to do Af..

1. Face recognition + Tracking

2. FlexiZone - Multi

3. FleziZone - Single

So in the short time that I have had the Eos M I have found that the workflow described below works for me. Of course this may change as I get to know the camera better...

When I use the optical viewfinder (OVF) I use the 'Flexizone Multi' in the 'Scene Intelligent' auto setting. Because there is no indication in the OVF where the focus point is I need something that will find focus on a larger area. The FlexiZone Multi covers the whole area of the image and it will find some point to focus on. Outdoors in bright light it is quick enough. There is a slight hesitation, about .5 sec and then the beeper lets me know it has acquired focus. Shutter release is instantaneous.

The fastest focus so far seems to be with the Flexizone -Single. Here I can also move the focus point around by merely tapping the screen and it works well. The problem with using the single focus point with the OVF is that when my nose touches the screen the focus point moves away from the the center, and its better to use the Fexizone - Multi. 

Another way is to use face recognition with the OVF. Sometimes its fast but sometimes its very slow to find the face...

Of course when I don't use the OVF, which is more than I would like to admit, then any and all of the above work. The trick is to find which settings work faster, bt that i will only find out with more practice. 

What doesn't work is to press the shutter all the way down, in other words, focus and shutter release all at once...that does seem to confuse the camera and the whole process can take a very long time whilst one wonders what is happening....first pre-focus and then when you hear the focus confirmation 'beep', press the shutter,  this is also  the way I use my Eos5d2 and I have never really used a camera any other way.

In the few days that I have had the camera the focus has not been much of a limiting factor for the type of photography that I do. 

The Leica OVF costs half as much as the whole Eos M kit put together.! Unfortunately the Leica is only plastic as opposed to the solid metal body and lens of the Eos M

Body.

The body is surprisingly small even with the lens attached. It feels very solid and I am sure it will  survive a fall, not that I will ever test it! It is heavier than it looks which contributes to the feeling of 'solidness'.

The grip, imo, is not quite adequate and I think the grip was sacrificed for size.  I use a strap around my neck all the time so it is secure. In any case I always use two hands even with this tiny camera...but it will be nice if some third party manufacturer can make a small grip for the Eos M. 

As an old timer I wish it had more direct control buttons, but I realize that the camera was probably not aimed at me...not sure why because it makes a lot of sense as a backup camera for the type of photography that I do, which involves a lot of tripod work and slow exposures.

Eos M with Adapter and 40mm pancake. The lenshood from the Ef 50mm f1.8 fits perfectly on the pancake with no vignetting.

Screen.

This is my first touch screen camera and I am still getting used to it, but its detailed enough to focus manually without 'focus peaking'.  Of course hand holding the camera without an I/S lens and trying to MF at the same is impractical. It also feels that the shutter is less responsive in MF mode. Touch focusing also works surprisingly well and the screen is very quick and responsive in this regard. Having used the touch screen only for a few days I actually wish my 5Dmk2 also had something similar as an option...its definitely much easier and faster than using the joystick when in Live view. Touchscreen, like live view are great features to have and once used the initial aversion fades away...

Menu.

I must be getting old but I do find the menu, contrary to other reports, not all that intuitive. It took me a while to figure out where some basic functions are and even now after a few days it still takes quite long to locate something like 'touch shutter'. There is just so many many functions than I will never use. I must just get to know the essential ones and where to find them.... easier said than done....

Once its set up though, access to important functions like aperture, exposure compensation and ISO is just one turn of the quick control dial away. I shoot 95% aperture priority, and its very easy to select and change,  and the other often used settings like exposure compensation and ISO are also both on hand, just on click away...

Less is More. Canon should really rethink their Camera branding! The camera is way too cluttered with white lettering and logos! The 40mm pancake is probably the most 'natural' Ef lens to fit on the Eos M as its small size compliments the Eos M well...Adapter feels solid.

Lens.

I have only the one dedicated lens for this camera, the  Ef-M 22mm F2. It is tiny with, interestingly, a concave front element. The front element is very small for an F2 lens and its only about a centimeter in diameter. The fact that it is concave and so small means my fingers cant brush against it accidentally and thus it stays cleaner. By comparison my Leica X1's f2.8 lens front element is about twice the size! I really don't have much need for F2, I am more a F4-F8 person but the lens seems sharp at all apertures although I haven't done a thorough test yet. There is quite a bit of CA but it is easy enough to fix via LR4 or DPP, as is the vignetting. 

I normally use LR4 because its just so easy and the quality is superb, but with the Eos M, I have been experimenting with the Digital Lens Optimizer setting that is a very sophisticated tools that corrects for Distortion, CA, Vignetting and the loss of Sharpness from the anti aliasing filter of the camera. An unexpected advantage is that after processing a file with the Digital Lens Optimizer function, the image needs very little sharpening afterwards. ( Digital Lens Optimizer is found in DPP the free Canon software included in the box ) But it is early days and I am still searching for the optimum workflow.... 

Canon Ef- M 22mm f2 lens.ISO 800 f5.6 and 1/90. Focused on chest. available light indoors. Made a nice'n sharp, nose to the paper, 14 x20 inch print...

Tight crop to show image quality at 800iso. Of course it looks much better as a full size tiff file!

Sensor.

So far I am happy with the sensor in that it has good highlight recovery and even the shadows can be pushed a bit. There is definitely some noise in the shadows, like all high megapixel Canons seem to have nowadays but if the shadows are pushed moderately the noise can easily be reduced or eliminated completely. One has to be careful with the luminance and noise reduction otherwise the files can  look very 'digital'. This is my first experience with a high megapixel aps-c Canon sensor, my previous cameras with these smaller sensors were the 20D and 40D, both which have very clean files and virtually noiseless shadows.  But I am still learning how to process these temperamental files. Iso 800 is good and I will use it when needed. I have not tested the higher iso's yet.

ISO 800 F5.6 and 1/60sec. Canon Ef-M 22mm F2 lens. Available light indoors. Used  bleach bypass setting on Nik Colour Efex. Crop below as is from camera...

Tight crop to show image quality at 800 iso and shallow depth of field even at F5.6!

Colour.

I am usually not too worried about colour accuracy, because I usually reduce the saturation and increase the micro contrast, which messes up the 'perfect' colour, but all the reviews state that its fine, and that's all I need to know. I only shoot RAW and thus I can fix everything in post. My usual camera settings are Adobe RGB, daylight and neutral colour . I very seldom use auto white balance, partly because I can neutralize my RAW files in LR4 but also so that I can see what the original lighting looked like...who wants perfectly neutral colour all the time? If I really want accurate colour then I include a QP Card in the scene.

Conclusion.

so far the Eos M has exceeded my expectations! The AF is definitely not as bad as what I expected and not a deal breaker for me. But I suppose having come from the Leica X1 that also has notoriously slow focus, even just a small improvement was welcome! 

I get the impression though that the Eos M is targeted at the younger 'smartphone' set....people that don't really need to know the craft of photography but just want a cool looking point and shoot that can do it all without input from the owner. But if you dig deeper into the sometimes confusion menu then everything that a photographer need can be found. Its just that I sometimes get the feeling that this camera was not designed by a photographer, but by a committee that had a checklist to complete...the Leica X1 designers knew they had a slow AF camera but they gave us a smart 'Zone Focus'  to compensate whereas the Eos M designers also knew they had a slow AF camera but they hoped we wouldn't notice....

Likes so far

Price

Build quality

Ef M 22mm f2 lens quality

Integration with rest of my Canon system

Dislikes

Menu 

AF can hunt sometimes for no apparent reason

No way to set Zone Focus
Short battery life 

Some more images and info...

This image made at f11 and 800iso. F11 on the Ef M 22mm lens is perfectly useable...

The Eos M can even capture some action! It even managed to focus on my Boxers leg...but don't ask me to repeat it, .....yet.

Ef-m 22mm lens. F5.6 1/180sec  Evaluative metering. + 1/2 stop. Flexizone Multi focusing

Ef- M 22mm lens. Ff8 1/250sec. Evaluative metering +1/2 stop.FlexiZone -  Multi focus

My office at noon..Eos M and 17-40L lens at f8, 100iso, 1/200 sec.  I triggered two Speedlights inside my office to lift shadows.  

Part Two of my review can be found here ...http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/05/eos-m-reviewpart-two.html

Part Three, high iso tests, can be found here...http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/2013/05/eos-m-reviewhigh-iso-noise-tests.html

Regards, Ivan