How about Canon EOS M

[polygon]

Hi All,   
      I'm interest in Canon EOS M now. its very small with 18mp, and cheaper than 600D dslr.
      Do you have any experience of this type of camera?
      Does Smart Shooter work with it?   

[Magnus]

Hello!

The unfortunate thing about the EOS M is that Canon removed the remote shutter port so one can not use a corded remote to trigger it.

Best, Magnus.

[polygon]

Thanks Magnus, thats bad news, but is this reasonable to use such kind of camera? if it has a remote port?
Since it has no mirrors, is that faster than DSLR? or maybe reduce black shots when doing multi-shots?

[WickedShell]

We do work with an EOS M as an aerial platform. While it lacks a shutter control port, we have been flying it with Magic Lantern firmware, which adds an intervalometer, this way we just set the delay between photos, delay to start, and a limit (if any) to the number it captures. This is fairly effective for gathering a large number of photos while flying, but may not meet your needs.

A note about the camera though is that it is pretty slow to auto focus, which if left enabled makes taking pictures quite a bit slower, however in our application (aerial photography) it isn't a problem as the focus can be pre set (close to infinity) for the target altitude, or alternatively leave auto focus on, and rely on the fact that the focus wont change much. The latter is still fairly fast, and provides more then sufficient overlap.

Hopefully that helps a bit.

[EMULAT3D]

Thanks for the info on the Canon EOS M WickedShell! This is a camera I have been looking at as well. Can you confirm if Magic Lantern adds remote trigger via USB similar to that of CHDK?

Thanks!

[WickedShell]

It did not add it for me, maybe it will show up in a future update. But at the moment you can have Magic Lantern in intervelometer taking many pictures, as soon as USB is connected all image capture stops immediately. GPhoto can't see anyway to capture photos, although it can pull images.

I really hope it gets it added at somepoint to Magic Lantern or officially supported.

[EMULAT3D]

Hey WickedShell,

Thanks for the update on the lack of USB trigger in Magic Lantern for EOS M. Here's hoping it gets added soon.

Thanks!

[WickedShell]

Yeah, I keep hoping to see someone say it works, but haven't heard it yet.

The Canon Rebel SL1 might meet your needs. Pretty much the same specs as the EOS M, except it is a DLSR, same sensor (I think, its at least the same resolution and APS-C so it seems like a good bet). Its a bit large physical case, but as an actual DLSR I'd expect it to have tethering capabilities, although I haven't been able to test it yet. The SL1 is not quite at cheap as the EOS M has gotten recently but its around what I orginally paid to get an EOS M so it may be worth looking at.

[andre@geonet.co.za]

Try the Stratosnapper!
http://littlesmartthings.com/stratosnapper/

[Oli63]

The problem concerning the slow focussing seems to be improved now, according to
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/08/01/canon-eos-m-review-firmware-update-finally-makes-this-mirrorless-cameras-af

[andyroo]

WickedShell - are you using the 22mm pancake or the 18-55mm zoom? Also are you flying just with the internal battery? If so, I am curious how long it lasts (and what interval you are firing).

I just bought an Eos M, aiming for cleaner imagery with the big sensor. I've been flying with a Canon D10, which gives me about 2 hours flight time at 3-second interval on the internal battery.

I went with the 18-55mm lens on my Eos M because the 22mm doesn't have image stabilization, and IS made a big difference with the D10 for my wing-mount (Cessna 172), but it sure does stick out of the wing with that big lens..

Also for others thinking about it, the EOS M looks like it's shipping with the new (2.02) firmware now, and MagicLantern is not quite working on that one yet. Here's the porting thread if you're interested:

[WickedShell]

I'm using the 22MM pancake. Do to the tiny size of the platform we are flying on I've never heard good things about IS actually. So we have't minded not having it, and we provide a 1-Axis Stabilizer mount for it, which really just serves to keep the camera nadir on that axis. But due to no IS and the huge reduction in weight made it worth it for us.

In magic lantern we have the delay set to 1 second on autofocus, which translates to an image roughly every 3 seconds aloft (due to relatively small change in the required focus) at smooth large jpegs with autofocus on single shot mode. If the focusing has gotten better then this time could go down. If you are willing to set focus manually first you can put the camera on continuous capture before starting magic lantern and get images at maximum capture rate, but it's impossible to get it to focus in this mode. Due to a bug in the autofocus algorthim + magic lantern, when it can't solve a focus problem (gives you a red square) it will stop capturing images, and to avoid this we use the delay timer, set it to 2 minutes which is adequate time to get the plane in the air and avoid any bad focus situation. (The camera sitting an inch away from the ground can't focus in our setup). As for endurance, we get at least an hour and a half of endurance without a problem. Due to normally flying 45 minute legs, I can't tell you where dead battery will be except that it is past an hour and a half. Obviously minimizing screen brightness is important on this, as well as making sure the camera wont poweroff before the intervelometer starts.

I didn't know about that on the firmware. That's good to know actually, as we are thinking about getting another one. We swapped from a higher resolution point and shoot to the EOS M and have been getting much better results due to the change in sensor size and the glass, both predictable results.

As far as external shuttering options go, I'm not aware of being able to connect it directly to the camera like that. It's possible I missed that, I never saw any mention of support for external shuttering, and before ordering the camera I had already settled on the ML solution and didn't investigate further (except checking out tethering which doesn't happen).

[WickedShell]

What I don't know, is how well the GPS hotshoe works, which I'd be very intrested in knowing the performance of that. (Update rate to position and accuracy). We've been working with correlating photo location by establishing a time offset, and running through the plane log to find the correct location to match the timestamp. Been very intrested in the GPS, and was wondering if anyone else has tried it?

[chadfx]

I have no idea about the performance of the GPS hotshoe attachment, but I would imagine it would be about as accurate as a regular consumer GPS (5-10m perhaps?) I don't know what your requirements would be.

However this little device might prove interesting (although it would be a pricey option)...centimeter level precision!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swiftnav/piksi-the-rtk-gps-receiver

[chadfx]

a review of that Canon GPS logger:

http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/2012/05/14/podcast-335-canon-gps-receiver-gp-e2-review/

doesn't seem to be super accurate...