It looks like 2021 will be the last year for the EOS M lineup [CR2]

[Antono Refa]

I am amazed at the number of people who keep saying there is no upgrade path from M to R like there was from EF-s to EF. Do these folks not know that EF-s lenses do not work on EF cameras? The only upgrade path that existed was if you had and EF-s camera and bought FF lenses, you could then use them on a FF camera. Other than the 7D II crowd, that list is very short.

With sales going through the roof, Canon could ignore that short list. With a shrinking market, why serve them to the competitors on a silver plater?

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

My main rig is an EOS 7D Mark II, which I use with a Sigma 100-400 for airshows. A couple of years ago, I bought an M5/18-150 kit. At the time, I was traveling a lot for my job, and I wanted something smaller and lighter to travel with for those times when I found myself with half a day free and I wanted to go to a zoo or a lake or a museum. I also love it when I go hiking or biking due to its small size and weight and excellent image quality, and my son has been using it for astrophotography through a telescope for the same reasons.

My point is, people who say that the M series is only for novices or for people who don't really care about image quality are missing out on an amazing system. To me, the M5 is a smaller mirrorless 80D.

For more evidence, go to photography-on-the.net and check out the EF-M and M50 threads. Those threads are very active with folks posting the most incredible images using M-series bodies with lenses ranging from the EF-M kit lenses to adapted EF-S and full frame EF and L lenses.

Canon has to do what they believe is best for their long term survival and bottom line in a shrinking market. But I think it would be a shame to lose the M system.

 

[allanP]

For a long time similar hardware spectrum (7D2 + 70-300L and Sigma 150-600) but without airshows
For another area (studio work) medium format from Hasselblad.
M5 + 18-150 and some other EF-M lenses such as 11-22, 22, 32 etc for travel. I'm happy with that too.
Only 120,000 on the counter are starting to worry me. A successor is needed...
Canon, stop the nonsense with the rumors and bring out really good M camera (eg M5 Mk II)!

 

[riker]

I guess you missed all the threads and all the posts from APS-C birders and wildlife shooters who do indeede use "L" glass on the crop bodies and hope to do so with the rumored "R7". I am neither a birder or wildlife shooter, but if Canon does release a crop R body, I will be getting a used 70-300 L as my telephoto setup. The point is that such a crop camema will be cheaper than the R5 and have far more pixels than the R5 in crop mode.

Well, I happen to be a wildlife shooter. For 20 years now. I have a several friends of course who are also wildlife shooters. We have all been using crop bodies (D60-10D-20D-30D-40D) and we all switched to FF several years ago. I know professional wildlife shooters, some world-famous, all used 1D with it's 20MP, and some of them have a 7D for backup. Now that 20MP just became 45MP or with the R6 20MP became much more affordable with even twice the FPS.

You don't seem to getting my point. I never said nobody would ever buy a crop RF body. I said it's much less reasonable than it was 5-8y ago. Also, just because there are people who do not have money, nor are they experienced birders using tents/hideouts, just want to walk around the nearby park and expect to shoot a sparrow filling the image and might be willing to buy an APS-C RF body, it's not really an argument against what I was pointing out. Invalidating a general statement with an exception is invalid

But I'll put it a different way for you. Using an APS-C body with an L lens was much more regular/reasonable 10y ago than now and especially in the future. Imho.

 

[Dragon]

With sales going through the roof, Canon could ignore that short list. With a shrinking market, why serve them to the competitors on a silver plater?

True. OTOH, just who makes a competitor to the 7D II that has the desired properties (i.e. cheap, fast, and rugged) and the desired available lenses. Nobody in mirrorless land that I can think of. Canon will give them fast and rugged, but cheap may be off the table. An R5, with slightly lower pixel density but a more sophisticated AA filter, will give just as good resolution as the 7D II and do everything else better. It just isn't $1800. The R5s will have way more pixels on the bird and probably still be as fast as a 7D II, but it won't be $1800 either . As the old service sign says "We offer Cheap, Fast, and Good - Pick two).

 

[Czardoom]

Well, I happen to be a wildlife shooter. For 20 years now. I have a several friends of course who are also wildlife shooters. We have all been using crop bodies (D60-10D-20D-30D-40D) and we all switched to FF several years ago. I know professional wildlife shooters, some world-famous, all used 1D with it's 20MP, and some of them have a 7D for backup. Now that 20MP just became 45MP or with the R6 20MP became much more affordable with even twice the FPS.

You don't seem to getting my point. I never said nobody would ever buy a crop RF body. I said it's much less reasonable than it was 5-8y ago. Also, just because there are people who do not have money, nor are they experienced birders using tents/hideouts, just want to walk around the nearby park and expect to shoot a sparrow filling the image and might be willing to buy an APS-C RF body, it's not really an argument against what I was pointing out. Invalidating a general statement with an exception is invalid

But I'll put it a different way for you. Using an APS-C body with an L lens was much more regular/reasonable 10y ago than now and especially in the future. Imho.

Well, when you put it in a different way, your point may be valid to some degree. Perhaps I didn't get your point initially because you were a bit more definite. You said, " I think we kind of arrived where APS-C is paired with non-L glass and FF with L glass. Mixing APS-C and L glass is pretty much over. Possible but no point really."

There's a bit if a difference between "pretty much over" and "no point really" and "Using an APS-C body with an L lens was much more regular/reasonable 10y ago than now and especially in the future". And I agree to a certain extent.

But I still think there is enough of a market for crop camera / FF lenses for crop R bodies to be successful with birders and wildlife shooters, even in you - and others - have gone FF. The R5 is only 17 MP in crop mode - the R6 less than 8 MP. If Canon can put their 32 MP crop sensor in a new crop body meant for birders and wildlife, that - it seems to me - will still be a considerable advantage - especially if they can keep the cost at the R6 level. So having more reach and less cost may still be a workable formula for success, which is my general argument.

 

[Antono Refa]

True. OTOH, just who makes a competitor to the 7D II that has the desired properties (i.e. cheap, fast, and rugged) and the desired available lenses. Nobody in mirrorless land that I can think of.

In your opinion, is this a temporary state of affairs, or permanent?

Canon will give them fast and rugged, but cheap may be off the table.

As others have noted, its not just the body. The EF 300mm f/2.8 costs $6,099, while the EF 500mm f/4 costs $8,999.

An R5, with slightly lower pixel density but a more sophisticated AA filter, will give just as good resolution as the 7D II and do everything else better.

Yes, it would. Question is whether the 7D's target audience would be happy with it (I gather they'd like the 90D's 32MP sensor), and what the competition would have to offer. Currently, Nikon's only DX MILC is 20MP, but that might change.

 

[John Wilde]

In October, Canon USA wrote that the M50 is "the #1 selling mirrorless camera in the U.S. market" based on data from "The NPD Group, Inc. U.S. Retail Tracking Service". It's also (Source:BCN) Canon's best selling mirrorless camera in Japan. As long as people keep buying them, Canon will keep making them.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

Question is whether the 7D's target audience would be happy with it (I gather they'd like the 90D's 32MP sensor), and what the competition would have to offer. Currently, Nikon's only DX MILC is 20MP, but that might change.

Also keep an eye on on Sony for their next a6x00 body/bodies. The a6600 is 24 MP, fast, and they gave it a larger battery and grip (although still a bit small for my liking). If Canon doesn’t come out with a compelling mirrorless 7Dii successor, I might have to look elsewhere.

Whether Canon offers a worthwhile RF APS-C body or not, I’ll have to adapt my current EF lenses or get new ones. So switching systems doesn’t seem like as big a deal for me as it once was.

 

[John Wilde]

Is this rumor from Canon global or just USA? I had heard the EOS-M is their number one seller in Japan. Americans, on the other hand, tend to like things bigger.

The M50 is Canon's best selling mirrorless camera in both the USA and Japan.

 

[gektor]

My first EOS was the EOS 650. Then came the EOS 7 with its excellent eye control AF. After that, I used EOS 10D, EOS 20D and EOS 50D. After the 50D, I got the the EOS-M, which was excellent, the EOS M6, which was laggy and therefore awful and the EOS M6 Mark 2, which is excellent again.

I own some not-so-great (by today's standards) EF lenses and many EF-M lenses. Here is the list of lenses which have EF-M mounts:

Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM
Canon EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM
Canon EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM
Viltrox 7,5mm f/2.8
Samyang 8mm f/2.8
Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN | C
Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 STM
Canon EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro IS STM
Canon EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM
Kamlan 50mm f/1.1
Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 Mark 2

I mostly use the following lenses:

Samyang 8mm f/2.8
Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM
Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN | C
Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 STM
Canon EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro IS STM
Canon EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM
Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 Mark 2

If Canon decided to end the M-Line, all these lenses would be rendered useless in a long term. That doesn't seem acceptable to me, at least from the environmental perspective.

Those M-lenses are really good by standards of my old EF lenses and are sufficient for my needs. I might sell the ones I use less, but so far I haven't had the time or motivation to do that. Selling the whole system is even less interesting to me: Selling things one by one is an annoying process and selling the whole lot of stuff at once usually means losing more money than when selling one by one. So I I don't like both variants. Which is kind of stupid, of course, but that doesn't hurt either.

I would like to continue using my EF-M lens collection for as long as possible because with the original EOS-M or EOS-M6 MK2 (instead of the awful M6), they give me joy of photography. I'm not interested enough by the current innovations of the R system. Selling everything and starting a new camera and lens collection is not my focus right now. It just costs too much time and effort and many items are not even readily available to buy. On the other hand, there are not so many lenses that I need to change, and a new, more capable body is never a bad idea. Nevertheless, I just don't want to give up my tried and true leneses and a system I love to use. It's more of a feeling, of course.

Note: My current focus is photography, not videography, although I consider videography a very nice addon. I've done much of my YouTube work using iPhones or a Panasonic Camcorder, which have been way more reliable and suitable for fast and continuous video work than any Canon I've seen, except the C-Series.

The compactness of the camera is a very nice touch of the M-System, but it's not extremely important for me. I like to use my M6 MK2 with a Smallrig wood handle arca swiss bracket on, after all. The small size of the lenses on the other hand, is a very good and important feature. I like to use prime lenses and being able to comfortably carry many relatively bright primes with me is a thing I'm now used to. This would not be possible with a full frame system with it's way larger fast primes.

So would I ever buy an RF body? And if so, will it be APS-C or FF?

If Canon offered a "speed booster" converter from EF-M to RF, I would consider buying two RF bodys in the future. One small APS-C body and one full frame top spec body with some fancy, expensive lenses. The prerequisite of a speed booster offering from Canon (for the APS-C RF body at least, better for all RF bodies) is important, not because I consitder it very useful for delivering top notch results (it is not), but because I would feel respected by Canon in my (perhaps not very practical) choice of not selling my lenses. Otherwise, I'm just not interested enough to invest in a new system. I would also buy new M bodies if Canon offered something new, like IBIS.

I just don't like throwing everything out and starting over. A slow transition seems fine. In the end, I kind of (mostly?) switched from EF to M. Maybe because I could continue to use my familiar lenses with the new camera?

 

[Jethro]

A slow transition seems fine.

This seems much more likely. If there actually will be an RF APS-C body in 2021, then the likelihood is that there won't be any new M series bodies anytime soon (unless there is one or more at a late stage of current development - but I'm not sure new models are really due anyway?) - ie the development work will have shifted into the RF line. That doesn't mean they'll stop making the current M series bodies, for all the profit-related reasons that are being pointed out.

So your lenses have a long life ahead of them!

 

[Traveler]

Interesting... I wonder if the R&D on the M line is any significant. They don't develop any new lenses (since there are just three or four zooms and a couple of primes) and the M cameras use technologies from other cameras. So it's just pretty much the body design.

I still think it would be smarter to design cheap FF R bodies and cheap FF RF lenses than developing APSC R system.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

I like the small size of the M series. Of course having said that I buy an M6II and mount this on it:

I kept talking myself out of an M series camera because I have an Osmo Action and Osmo Pocket as my pocket cameras but now I am waiting for a good deal on M6 Mark II.
Osmo Pocket is kind of fragile and Osm Action is not really something that I would keep in my pants pocket.
With my luck once I buy it Canon will make a better M7 model with IBIS and 4K 60 FPS

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

There's a bit if a difference between "pretty much over" and "no point really" and "Using an APS-C body with an L lens was much more regular/reasonable 10y ago than now and especially in the future". And I agree to a certain extent.

I don't understand that statement from either Czardoom or riker about using an APS-C body with an L lens being less "reasonable" now than in the past. Could one or both of you please explain what it means?

Here's my take: For small, distant subjects (wildlife, BIF, airplanes, sports), I want to get as many pixels as possible under the subject. The math seems pretty clear to me: To get the same 20MP (as I get with the 7D Mark II) in the central 1.6 crop area of a FF sensor requires 20MP x (1.6)^2 = 51.2 MP. The R5, with 45 MP, is almost there but not quite. Even assuming the R5 cropped was acceptable (17.6MP), why should I pay 2x the cost of a 7D Mark II just so I could throw out 60% of the pixels?

Should I also buy a good 1.4x TC, resulting in even more cost above the 2x I'm already paying for the body, in order to recover those extra pixels?

I'm just trying to understand the statement "Using an APS-C body with an L lens was much more regular/reasonable 10y ago than now and especially in the future".

 

[EOS 4 Life]

True. OTOH, just who makes a competitor to the 7D II that has the desired properties (i.e. cheap, fast, and rugged) and the desired available lenses. Nobody in mirrorless land that I can think of. Canon will give them fast and rugged, but cheap may be off the table. An R5, with slightly lower pixel density but a more sophisticated AA filter, will give just as good resolution as the 7D II and do everything else better. It just isn't $1800. The R5s will have way more pixels on the bird and probably still be as fast as a 7D II, but it won't be $1800 either . As the old service sign says "We offer Cheap, Fast, and Good - Pick two).

My favorite thing about mirrorless is the ability to adapt legacy lenses and pretty much all of them can adapt EF.
I use a G9 for that purpose.
After using the R5 I wish Canon would make an MFT camera.
APS-C does not have the reach.
I wish Canon would make a 1-inch EF-M mount camera with IBIS.
I think the 1-inch ILC from Nikon and Samsung failed because they tried to introduce new mounts.

 

[riker]

But I still think there is enough of a market for crop camera / FF lenses for crop R bodies to be successful with birders and wildlife shooters, even in you - and others - have gone FF. The R5 is only 17 MP in crop mode - the R6 less than 8 MP. If Canon can put their 32 MP crop sensor in a new crop body meant for birders and wildlife, that - it seems to me - will still be a considerable advantage - especially if they can keep the cost at the R6 level. So having more reach and less cost may still be a workable formula for success, which is my general argument.

Yeah...kinda...but....you don't need that crop all the time. Wildlife photographers and birders also shoot landscape and whatever, plus even shooting birds zoom lenses are often used (70-200, 100-400, 300-800, etc.) for a reason. In many cases your lens gives you enough reach and you could end up with a 45MP image. In other cases you only need to crop a bit, 5-10-20% of the image which still results a 32+MP image. Not mentioning, even a 17MP image is faaaar enough in most cases, not just for web/social media but even for an exhibition/gallery.
My take is your demand is a very thin market. Will see this year what Canon thinks. Imho there's a reason we have seen 4 FF bodies but still no APS-C even though 7D2 was released in 2014. My guess is the upcoming APS-C body will be an entry-level cheap one, especially if M is over. If it was up to me, I would just stop producing APS-C all together.
(Btw if they ever make a 33MP/15-20FPS body, it's not going to be as cheap as you wish.)
(Btw2 I don't see Sony making APS-C bodies above their compact lines, in fact they go in the direction that I'm envisioning - they have just released an FF compact body. I do wish Canon takes the same path!)

 

[stevelee]

In 2022 2021 will be the last year and 2023 will be the next year.

And now 2020 is hindsight.

 

[TravelerNick]

There are already two crop sensor RF cameras. The C70 from Canon the Komodo from Red. Okay both video only but they exist. So does the Canon speedbooster.

It makes some sense for Canon to release something under the R5 for people to pair up with the C70. Maybe a couple of high end wide lenses.

People have already pointed out the low end market is gone. When Apple released the Iphone the big three phone companies? Nokia,Motorola and Ericsson. Do you think they are better off supporting flip phone users?

For those hammering on about the "profit" from M sales. How many people here are waiting for backordered cameras,lenses etc? Canon obviously has production limits. Does it really make more sense to use limited resources for M instead of shipping more R5 and all the other back order items?

For people thinking Fuji etc are doing better. Two of Fuji's more interesting lenses (The MK line 50-135mm and MK18-55mm T2.9 ) are E mount and via a third party mount change RF. Fuji doesn't even think their own cameras are worth the MK lenses.

 

[Antono Refa]

For those hammering on about the "profit" from M sales. How many people here are waiting for backordered cameras,lenses etc? Canon obviously has production limits. Does it really make more sense to use limited resources for M instead of shipping more R5 and all the other back order items?

That's not a rhetorical question. My guess is customers who want an R5 are far more likely to wait for one than EOS-M's target audience.

People who are interested in an R5 are far more likely to have EF lenses [and more likely expensive ones], so their choices are waiting or the expensive proposition of switching brands. So long term, Canon is better off making EOS-M now, letting RF customers wait.