Canon EOS M6 review: A fine compact CSC

Canon’s EOS M range of compact system cameras (CSCs) had a shaky start in life, but the Canon EOS M5 proved these little cameras were ready for the big league. The M5 is a bit of an extravagance, though, costing £1,000 body only or £1,300 with its 18-150mm kit lens. With the two-year-old Canon EOS M3 still available for around £440 that leaves a mid-price gap in the line-up, which the Canon EOS M6 is here to plug. However, £839 is still a big expense and this camera needs to work hard to compete with the Panasonic G80, Sony a6300 and Fujifilm X-T20.

The key difference compared with the M5 is the lack of a viewfinder. This means the M6 looks more like a chunky compact than a slim SLR. It still has a decent-sized handgrip, though, and along with the rubber texture and contoured shape on the back it’s surprisingly comfortable for such a small camera.

It has a tilting screen, which isn’t uncommon at this price, but it’s welcome nonetheless, allowing you to shoot from high or low angles, or brace your elbows against your hips for added stability. The pop-up flash tilts upwards, so you can bounce light off the ceiling to avoid harsh shadows; a Guide Number (GN) of 5 meters means its output is pretty feeble, though. I also found my left hand often masked the autofocus assist lamp.

If you’re struggling to decide whether you need a viewfinder, it’s worth noting that Canon sells an add-on unit (part name EVF-DC2) for £219. It sits in the camera’s hotshoe and buying both the M6 and EVF-DC2 works out a little cheaper than buying an M5. It also means you can choose to leave it behind when you want to travel light.

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Canon EOS M6 review: Ergonomics and layout

Otherwise, the two cameras are pretty similar, with the same layout of buttons and a tilting touchscreen on the back. The EOS M6’s 3in screen is a little smaller than the M5’s 3.2in screen but it’s not a serious drawback and Canon still finds room for five rotary controls. There’s a general-purpose wheel on the back for adjusting the currently selected parameter plus a further four dials on the top. One sets the exposure mode, another is dedicated to exposure compensation while front and rear command dials provide direct access to exposure settings.

It’s rare to have so many dials on such a petite camera, and their chunky metal construction gives the impression of an upmarket camera that’s built to last. The rear command dial is assigned to ISO speed by default, which I found useful, but I also found that it was susceptible to the occasional accidental nudge. Switching from Auto ISO to 25600 resulted in some extremely grainy photos before I noticed what had happened.

It’s rare to have so many dials on such a petite camera and their chunky, metal construction gives the impression of an upmarket camera that’s built to last. The rear command dial is assigned to ISO speed by default, which I found useful, but I also found that it was susceptible to the occasional accidental nudge. Switching from Auto ISO to 25600 resulted in some extremely grainy photos before I noticed what had happened.

There’s also a customisable M-Fn button and the Delete button can be assigned additional duties during capture — white balance and drive mode are the obvious candidates. Assigning drive mode gave access to burst settings but not the self-timer or bracketing, for which I had to visit the Q menu and main menu respectively. At least the touchscreen makes light work of navigating the Q menu.

The M6 continues the EOS system’s tradition of making manual white balance calibration needlessly convoluted. Where most cameras take perhaps two or three button pushes while aiming the camera at a grey subject, the M6 requires you to capture photos of a grey subject and then navigate to the sixth tab in the main menu to locate the Manual WB function. This feature is likely to see regular use so it’s bizarre it’s tucked away past obscure settings such as lens aberration correction and manual focus peaking options.

Another frustration is the inability to customise the behaviour of the Auto ISO mode. Picking an ISO speed is a complex balancing act between avoiding noise, camera shake and motion blur, and the amount of available light, subject motion, camera motion and the lens’s focal length must all be weighed up. The M6 usually made intelligent decisions but not always. The slowest shutter speed in low light was 1/40sec, which is sensible for shots at the long end of the kit lens’ zoom but faster than is necessary for a wide-angle shot in low light.

The camera was often thrown by me raising it and quickly taking a shot when it picked fast shutter and ISO speeds to avoid blur due to camera shake. I found I needed to hold the camera steady for at least a second to reassure it I wasn’t shaking around. I saw similar behaviour from the M5. The ISO speed was limited to 1600 in this scenario so the results were still usable but noise was higher than it needed to be.

Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth are all built in for remote control and wireless transfers. Bluetooth allows a smartphone to be used as a simple wireless trigger for capturing photos or for advancing from one shot to the next during playback, which is handy for slideshows over HDMI. The Bluetooth connection also configures the Wi-Fi connection automatically for Android devices, which saves a lot of messing around with network passwords. The remote viewfinder app includes touchscreen-powered control over the autofocus point plus access to exposure-related settings. Bizarrely, though, the camera’s own controls are locked while it’s being operated via the app.

Canon EOS M6 review: Performance and autofocus

Inside, the M6 and M5 are all but identical and that’s borne out in their performance. The 295-shot battery life is on the low side and additional batteries are pricey at £45. It’s a little slow to turn on and shoot (1.5 seconds), but subsequent shots are only 0.5 seconds apart. Burst shooting runs at 9fps and lasts for 29 JPEGs or 16 RAW frames before slowing to the speed of the card. This is largely in line with rival compact system cameras (CSCs) and faster than the pricier Canon EOS 80D SLR. Burst shooting with continuous autofocus reached 6.9fps in my tests.

The EOS M6’s 24-megapixel sensor employ’s Canon’s Dual Pixel technology to help the autofocus system jump to the correct focus position directly rather than have to hunt back and forth until it achieves sharp focus. The older, cheaper EOS M3 lacks this feature and took 2.2 seconds between shots, so Dual Pixel is clearly playing an important role here.

If you use the touchscreen to select an area of the frame to focus on you get a choice of either a small or even smaller area. This sometimes didn’t give the camera enough to work with and, on a couple of occasions when shooting indistinct subjects in low light, it repeatedly failed to focus. I’d forgive the occasional focus misfire but recurring problems with a particular shot are quite frustrating.

Canon EOS M6 review: Video mode

Dual Pixel may bring mixed blessings for photos but it really pays off when it comes to video. The EOS M6’s ability to determine in advance what adjustment is required to bring a subject into focus means the lens elements glide smoothly and decisively rather than darting back and forth. I usually disable autofocus when shooting video as this clunky darting effect, known as focus hunting, can completely spoil a shot but the M6 (along with the other Canon cameras with Dual Pixel sensors) are an exception to the rule. The touchscreen makes it easy to define what the camera should focus on, and the tracking mode does a fine job of following moving subjects around the frame.

It’s frustrating, then, that videos are limited to 1080p resolution. 4K video can give a big boost to quality, even when exporting finished projects at 1080p and it’s annoying to have to choose between Canon’s more reliable autofocus and Sony, Panasonic and Fujifilm’s 4K capture.

Canon EOS M6 review: Image quality

Still image quality is perhaps the Canon EOS M6’s greatest strength. Photos display lifelike yet vibrant colours without the slightest hint of noise in bright conditions and noise is managed well in low light, giving respectable snapshots at ISO speeds as high as 6400. The kit lens performed well throughout its zoom range, delivering the sort of sharp focus a 24-megapixel sensor needs.

The only problems with image quality come from the camera’s occasionally less-than-ideal automatic exposure settings, as described above. These were far from disastrous issues but sometimes a bit of manual intervention provided better results.

^ Rich yet natural colours and packed full of detail, with only a slight fall-off of lens focus towards the edges of the frame in this wide-angle shot (1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 100, 24mm equivalent)

^ The telephoto end of the kit lens is impressively sharp throughout the frame (1/160s, f/10, ISO 100, 72mm equivalent)

^ Skin textures are detailed and natural, and the big APS-C sensor delivers a shallow depth of field, throwing the background out of focus (1/250s, f/5, ISO 200, 43mm equivalent)

^ Skin and hair textures are holding together well at ISO 1600. Close inspection reveals some noise and detail smearing but it’s hard to spot at normal viewing sizes (1/60s, f/4, ISO 1600, 37mm equivalent)

^ Crisp detail and not a hint of noise on these friendly-looking fellows (1/640s, f/8, ISO 100, 56mm equivalent)

^ An accidental nudge of the rear command dial has pushed the ISO speed up to 25600, resulting in a slightly overexposed and extremely grainy photo. (1/4000s, f/22, ISO 25600, 29mm equivalent)

^ Shooting in dim artificial light at ISO 4000. Picture quality is decent but the exposure is a little dark for my liking. (1/40s, f/5, ISO 4000, 56mm equivalent)

^ ISO 10000 is looking pretty scruffy but it’s not a write-off. Slower shutter and ISO speeds would have given better results but that requires overriding the automatic settings. (1/40s, f/6.3, ISO 10000, 67mm equivalent)

Canon EOS M6 review: Verdict

As I said at the top of this review, £839 is a lot for a camera that seems to be geared primarily towards casual users, albeit those who still demand high quality. However, there aren’t many other options that deliver such high quality in this small and light a package. The Panasonic GX80 is broadly similar but includes a high quality viewfinder and costs around £550. Its controls aren’t as elegant and its smaller sensor means it falls behind a little for image quality, but it records 4K video and it has a much larger range of compatible lenses.

The Canon EF-M lens range is relatively small, with just seven models and there’s a notable lack of fast primes. Canon sells a mount adapter for £90 that allows Canon SLR lenses to be used, but these will make the EOS M6 a much bulkier camera. Realistically, I’d imagine most M6 owners will stick with the kit lens, or perhaps add the EF-M 22mm f/2, which costs around £180. For the same money, you could have a Panasonic GX80, 25mm f/1.7 lens and 42.5mm f/1.7 lens, which offers more flexibility and compensate for the Canon’s larger sensor with brighter apertures.

So at current prices and against the existing competition the Canon EOS M6 is a safe bet but doesn’t quite do enough to warrant a recommendation.