# EOS-M in Turkey



## Rocky (Nov 10, 2014)

Most of the members are using EOS-M as a back up or for light duty usage. I was using the EOS-M as my ONLY camera on a 12 day land tour in Turkey. I would like to share my experience with you.
Equipment: EOS-M, 22/2.0, 18-55mm Zoom, 90/4.0 Elmer, 35/2.0 Summicron, 8X32 binocular, SD 800 IS (as backup, in case the EOS-M dies, fortunately, it never got used), additional lens caps,. Lens hoods, 2 spare batteries, lens cleaning stuff. All packed in a Lowepro Nova 2 with a Lowepro Dashpoint 20 in the Nova 2 to fill in empty space. The total weight of the bag is 7 lbs.
Since this is a small system, That make me feel a lot more comfortable in both the size and the weight of the bag.
Both Canon EF-M lenses feels very slippery. Since the Nova 2 is packed very tight, it makes the changing of lens a little bit scary. The Dashpoint 20 can be attached to the strap of the Nova2. That make it become an additional pocket for the lens or camera.. That makes live a lot easier. I have also put the EOS-M with 22/2.0 in it for easy access. Thanks Nuero for the suggestion of Dashpoint 20. I have actually drop the EOS-M with 22/2.0( in the dashpoint10) from chest level. Nothing is broken. Lucky!! 
In bright sunlight, I have to turn the screen brightness all the way up to make the camera usable. If the sun shines right on the screen, all bets are off. Fortunately, I have a 25mm view optical view finder. With my glasses(with the sunglass attachment to push my eye even further away from the view finder. That make it almost the same angle of view of the 22/2.0.
Battery life: since I have to turn up the brightness of the screen, the battery is only good for about 200 to 250 shorts. I am glad that I have 2 spare batteries.
Touch screen is both a blessing and a curse. It makes adjustment very fast, especially AF points. I need to make sure that I do not touch it by accident and change something . One way to combat this problem is to use wrist strap and turn the camera off when I am taking a break in shooting.
Both lenses perform well as expected under normal condition. The 20/2.0 is slightly sharper than the zoom. The AF of 20/2.0 is slightly slower than the zoom. Both are lenses are sharp enough even Wide opened. Both have proved to me that they are suitable to do ”shoot and run” in an organized tour. The AF speed on both lenses on EOS-M is no match to USM lenses on the 40D. But the difference is not subtancial.
At low light (4 EV, 2.9 at 0.5escond with ISO1600) ,the zoom refuses to AF when the AF assistant light is out of range. The 20/2.0 can still AF at that condition.
Manual focusing: Since the screen of the EOS-M does not like bright sun light, the Magic Lantern with focusing peaking or LV Digic Peaking are very hard to use under the sun. It is a slow process. Not suitable for “shoot and run”. However the 90/4.0 Elmer proves to be indispensable during the balloon ride. I preset the distance at 300 ft and let the DOF takes care of the rest. That is zero delay in focusing. The Elmer is small but not light weight. The overall picture quality is even better than the 20/2.0. it will be in my EOS-M bag from now on. Due to the fore-mentioned reason, the Summicron had never seen the daylight.
The 18mm on EOS-M seems to be quite a bit narrower than the 17mm on the 40D. Quite a few times, I feel that the 18mm is not wide enough. I end up doing a lot of stitching.. I am considering either the 11-22 Canon EF-M or Rokinon 12/2.0 EF-M
Conclusion: The EOS-M system will be my travelling system. I need to live with the forementioned short coming also


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## Zv (Nov 11, 2014)

Thanks for sharing your experience! It's interesting - sunlight hitting the screen has never been an issue for me, maybe because I tend to shoot in the evening! 

Also worth noting, I had ML installed but I had to remove it when I bought the 11-22mm as it caused the camera to crash with this combo. I don't know why. It wouldn't let me take a picture when I pressed the shutter. When I switched memory cards to one without ML it worked fine. 

I was thinking of taking only my EOS M on my next trip too and see how it goes!


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## Rocky (Nov 11, 2014)

Zv said:


> Thanks for sharing your experience! It's interesting - sunlight hitting the screen has never been an issue for me, maybe because I tend to shoot in the evening!
> 
> Also worth noting, I had ML installed but I had to remove it when I bought the 11-22mm as it caused the camera to crash with this combo. I don't know why. It wouldn't let me take a picture when I pressed the shutter. When I switched memory cards to one without ML it worked fine.
> 
> I was thinking of taking only my EOS M on my next trip too and see how it goes!


Have you tried to install ML with a SLOWER SD card?? I have the same trouble with the 18-55 zoom with ML on a class 10 SD card. After I install the ML on a older Class4 card, the problem went away.


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## Zv (Nov 11, 2014)

Rocky said:


> Zv said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for sharing your experience! It's interesting - sunlight hitting the screen has never been an issue for me, maybe because I tend to shoot in the evening!
> ...



Woah I never even considered that it could be the SD card! The thing with that is the EOS M is slow enough as is - using a slow SD card would just annoy me. 

The only features I regularly used on ML were focus peaking or magic zoom and that was only with my manual focus lenses. I find the standard tap to zoom feature just as good when manual focusing so it's not an issue. Usually when using a manual lens I'm taking my time anyway. 

I do miss the in between ISO settings and some of the video features though so I might give it another go.


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## bf (Nov 15, 2014)

Dear Rocky, 
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm very curious to see your work with your Elmar lens. It would be nice if you can share a few shots.
About 11-22, I recommend it. It's a good, portable, and affordable lens. I bought it from Vistek with a price match in late July! It was at my door step in TX within a week.


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## Rocky (Nov 16, 2014)

bf said:


> Dear Rocky,
> Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm very curious to see your work with your Elmar lens. It would be nice if you can share a few shots.
> About 11-22, I recommend it. It's a good, portable, and affordable lens. I bought it from Vistek with a price match in late July! It was at my door step in TX within a week.


Taken with 90/4.0 Elmar at f8.0. from the other side of the valley. Image was cropped (not down sized) to fit the requirement of CR.


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## bf (Nov 16, 2014)

Thanks for sharing. Nice shot from a nice place.


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## yankl (Nov 17, 2014)

Rocky said:


> Most of the members are using EOS-M as a back up or for light duty usage. I was using the EOS-M as my ONLY camera on a 12 day land tour in Turkey. I would like to share my experience with you.
> Equipment: EOS-M, 22/2.0, 18-55mm Zoom, 90/4.0 Elmer, 35/2.0 Summicron, 8X32 binocular, SD 800 IS (as backup, in case the EOS-M dies, fortunately, it never got used), additional lens caps,. Lens hoods, 2 spare batteries, lens cleaning stuff. All packed in a Lowepro Nova 2 with a Lowepro Dashpoint 10 in the Nova 2 to fill in empty space. The total weight of the bag is 7 lbs.
> Since this is a small system, That make me feel a lot more comfortable in both the size and the weight of the bag.
> Both Canon EF-M lenses feels very slippery. Since the Nova 2 is packed very tight, it makes the changing of lens a little bit scary. The Dashpoint 10 can be attached to the strap of the Nova2. That make it become an additional pocket for the lens or camera.. That makes live a lot easier. I have also put the EOS-M with 22/2.0 in it for easy access. Thanks Nuero for the suggestion of Dashpoint 10. I have actually drop the EOS-M with 22/2.0( in the dashpoint10) from chest level. Nothing is broken. Lucky!!
> ...



Which 25mm optical view finder do you have and where one can buy it.
Thanks
JD


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## Rocky (Nov 18, 2014)

yankl said:


> ]
> 
> Which 25mm optical view finder do you have and where one can buy it.
> Thanks
> JD



If you are going to buy it you should buy the 35mm viewfinder. I just happened to have a 25mm view finder laying around
https://www.cameraquest.com/inventor.htm


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