CANON'S EOS M seeks to offer the versatility of a digital SLR camera but in a compact form.
That versatility includes a lens mount adaptor that lets the camera use more than 60 EF and EF-S lenses.
The EOS M has the same Canon 18MP APS-C image sensor used in its EOS 650D SLR camera, so it offers high-quality images. The removal of the mirrorbox assembly and viewfinder means the camera is about 50 per cent lighter and a lot smaller than the equivalent DSLR.
The body certainly is less bulky than the EOS 650D but, because you need to carry lenses and a separate flash unit, the benefit of having a compact body is somewhat undermined.
Nevertheless the EOS M has a big ISO range: 100-12800 expandable to 25600 and can shoot 4.3-frame-per-second bursts.
The camera is operated using its 3.0-inch touch-screen.
You can touch to focus and touch to shoot, as well as pinch-to-zoom and swipe to scroll when viewing photos, just as you might a compact camera.
The EOS M has a well organised menu with submenus accessed either with buttons or by touch. Shooting modes include handheld night scene, HDR backlight control and multi-shot noise.
There's a "creative auto mode" that lets inexperienced photographers control parts of an image while leaving other settings to the camera.
Canon cites the example of portrait mode from which users can adjust the amount of background blur using a slider, rather than through the more traditional aperture and shutter-speed settings.
You can buy the camera body with just the lens mount and use existing lenses for about $630, or the camera with a dual lens pack: a 18-55mm standard zoom and ultra-compact 22mm pancake lens, which will set you back about $1000.
