I've got to say that whilst I have no interest in the EOS-M body, I can appreciate that people like me are not Canon's main target audience. My main concern with this launch is the lack of lenses announced with it. My "hoped for" launch would have been:
- two bodies: this one and higher end model;
- three zooms: the EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM (collapsible would have been nice), an EF-M 55-150mm(ish) f/4-5.6 IS STM and an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM;
- three primes: three fast pancake lenses. I won't specify focal lengths or apertures, as we could all argue over this until the cows come home!
Of course, this would have been living in dreamland! In the real world, we might have hoped for
- two bodies (camera companies seem to be more keen on bodies than lenses!)
- two of the zooms
- one or two primes
In reality, we got one body, one zoom and one prime, not exactly a solid commitment to the system from Canon! This wouldn't be a problem, except that they're the last to the party; we weren't even given a roadmap. What incentive is there to invest into EOS-M when micro-4/3rds is now so well established, Sony are starting to look strong, Fuji are pitching to the enthusiast, and even Samsung have a pretty good lineup. I certainly wouldn't buy into this system based upon EF lens compatability, because we all know they're mostly pretty unsuitable for mirrorless cameras (too big and with poor AF speed). I'm sure that Canon had this in mind when they launched the new EF 18-135mm IS STM and 'shorty-forty', but I don't think they're anywhere near as compelling (for their target audiences) on EOS-M as they are on their native format.
Canon have now shown the hand that many people have been waiting to see before they committed to a system. That hand is pretty weak at the moment; they need to keep up the momentum as the EOS-M system currently risks fading into obscurity once the hype from the launch is over (like Nikon '1' has). If they haven't got anything else (mirrorless) to show at Photokina, there are going to be a lot of people buying into rival systems. If that happens, then Canon had best hope that mirrorless is a fad and not the future, or they will have truly blown their market position.