Perhaps unsurprisingly when my day job is writing about cameras and my hobbies are taking pictures with cameras – my discover page on Instagram is quite camera-centric. This means that I am fed a constant stream of which cameras the influencers of the world are pushing this week (yes, it changes a lot). And this week I have noticed Canon’s little EOS M cameras popping up much more frequently. Although, shed a tear, the EOS M series is no more – however, with tiny but capable cameras making a serious comeback, did Canon kill off the series too soon?
Well yes – if you are asking me. As a self-confessed Canon fanboy throughout the 2010s, I bought quite a few EOS M cameras. These included the awesome metal-bodied original EOS M, through to the EOS M3, and finally an EOS M5. I am not going to claim Canon’s EOS M series got a flawless report card, but even a Canon camera with a few faults is still a damn good camera. For its pocket-friendly size, the Canon EOS M6 Mark II was a monster with a 32.5MP sensor, 4K video, Dual Pixel AF, and a 30fps RAW burst mode.
It's hard to predict camera trends – the first wave of mirrorless cameras kicked off with tiny Micro Four Thirds models, and it was not long before Canon jumped in with its first EOS M camera, as did Nikon with its similar Nikon 1 series. But design soon gave way to a full-frame frenzy with Sony’s A7 cameras capturing headlines and hearts – those small MTF cameras became much bigger MTF cameras, and even tiny camera pioneer Panasonic shifted gears towards full-frame. All of which led to the Canon launching the EOS R series we have today.
With perhaps the exception of Fujifilm who has doggedly stuck to the smaller APS-C format and is now reaping the rewards, I don’t think many people saw compact and small cameras being quite so resurgent in the last year or so. Whether it is a backlash against the amount of AI in today's phone cameras, or just an excuse to slow down and think more carefully about the photos you want to take I can’t tell you, but everyone wants a point-and-shoot camera in their pocket again.
Canon officially discontinued the EOS M series in October 2023 – four years after the release of the EOS M200, which unwittingly would become its last EOS M camera. Canon has since followed up with its RF-S mount cameras, which are the closest spiritual successor the the M series, but to put it kindly, are underwhelming in design compared to the EOS M series, and don’t come close to their compactness.
I’d argue the world’s largest camera brand is now left without a series of cameras to perfectly fill this growing niche. Canon’s last surviving pro compact, the Canon G7 X Mark III, is an option, but compared to the M series, it doesn’t have the interchangeable lens flexibility and is limited by its 1-inch sensor for low light and equivalent aperture.
I don’t know what Canon has up its sleeve for the future, but less than a year after officially discontinuing the line, I can’t see Canon bringing back its EOS M cameras. Yet that doesn’t mean I am not still going to miss them, and I will join the EOS M fans of Instagram and agree that Canon killed off the series just a bit too soon.
See our guide to the best Canon EF-M lenses
