Im leaving the Canon mirrorless line
Recently I have felt I have been stuck in a Canon sized coffin. Even though its been mildly comfortable coffin, there is no room to move. I need to get out and the only way to do that is to jump ship and leave the Canon ecosystem. I first came to Canons aps-c mirrorless line because of their reputation for color, build quality, and autofocus, but for two major reasons Canon has let me down and forced me to leave.
The first is the small lens ecosystem. Canon has enough native focal lengths to fill any photographers needs but the system lacks enough high quality glass. I found myself frustrated when I needed to take a telephoto picture because I knew the image would either be soft or have severe fringing. There are some great native lenses such as the 11-22, 22 f/2, and the 28mm macro (along with a few others) but the rest of the lenses that fill the focal lengths are not so impressive. For a casual photographer the native lens lineup is fine and very affordable, I am just looking for more.
When can we expect more native lenses? Who knows since it took Canon years to give us a nifty 50. Canons roadmap for native aps-c lenses is none existent. The only new lens coming up is the 35mm 1.4 which looks like a great lens but many years late. With the lack of support for native lenses from Canon or third parties, this does not give me hope for the future of this camera system.
The only upgrade path for the Canon M line is to buy and adapt Canons full frame glass. If you take this route you eliminate the advantage of having a small aps-c camera. Slap on the adapter and a large L series lens and that small m6 becomes an unbalanced monstrosity. Most third party lenses for the Canon M cameras are either exact copies of the existing ef-m lenses that preform similarly or they are great primes but with manual focus. My 35mm f/.95 is a superb lens but sometimes difficult to use for moving subjects due to its manual focusing. If I use those manual lenses I dont get to use Canons amazing dual pixel autofocus.
The last reason: Every other camera manufacturer is surpassing canon in specs and features. Canon excels in color science, focusing, and reliability which are some of, if not, the most important parts of a camera but when it comes to to features and pure processing power, Canon is way behind. It seems like every other mirrorless camera, if it be 4/3, aps-c, FF, or MF, has surpassed Canon in video and camera features. Many cameras are coming out with IBIS and great 4k video features while Canons newest and greatest FF mirrorless camera has a crop in 4k, no slow motion 4K, no dual pixel autofocus in slow motion 1080p, manual exposure in 120 fps, no 60fps or above with older glass, soft video, and no IBIS. There are cameras half the price of the eos R that do more. Canons best aps-c mirrorless camera cannot even do 4k without the lose of Canons great AF and has a crop handicap as well.
I have two theories about why Canon is so behind. The first, which is the most hopeful, is that Canon is still trying to get a processor that is powerful enough to handle these great features without effecting Canons camera reputation for stability and quality. This is just a naive and simple reason for why Canon is not doing what every other camera manufacturer is doing and every Canon user is asking for.
The second theory is Canon is trying to milk its loyal customers. No professional lenses for eos m because they want you to buy and adapt their L lenses before they go obsolete to mirrorless, where you will then, in the future, buy their new FF mirrorless lenses to replace the older ef ones you just bought.
