You can get Magic Lantern firmware to extend its video capabilities (including a 3x HD crop mode, which will triple the effective focal length of any lens you attach to it.) This makes a good option if you want a compact camera with DLSR image quality. With an EF to EF-M adapter (£90 from Canon, imitations available for as little as £20) you can fit any current Canon lens, and you can also buy £20-£30 adaptors to fit other makers’ prime lenses. Canon also make their own, tiny 22mm f2 ‘pancake’ medium wide angle lens for the M series, and there are also 11-22 ultrawide, 55-200 telephoto, and 15-45 ‘standard zoom’ options. The EOS-M appears to have exactly the same sensor as the Canon 60D DSLR, but it’s a fraction of the size and weight. Much easier to carry anywhere, and useful to get a second camera angle. It’s really useful as an unobtrusive but high-quality camera, so I can record people working without poking a big SLR in their faces. The stabilised 18-55 zoom is good and the 22mm f2 lens is excellent.

The touchscreen-based controls are slow to use though, so it’s good to see that more recent models like the M3 (see below) have more physical controls on the camera body. Update: There are several current cameras in the EOS M system.

Canon eos m3 magic lantern