Canon EOS M3 review

The EOS M3 is Canon’s first CSC to be aimed squarely at enthusiast photographers. Andy Westlake finds out whether it hits the mark.

Canon EOS M3 – Dynamic range

At ISO 100 the EOS M3 gives a dynamic range of 11.9EV in our Applied Imaging tests. This is a little way off the best of its peers, and means that it allows less shadow detail to be recovered from raw files in comparison. Dynamic range falls only a little on increasing the sensitivity to ISO 200, but after that it drops monotonously, to around 8EV at ISO 3200. The higher ISO sensitivities give very low readings, indicating that most shadow detail will be swamped by noise.

Noise

With its new 24MP sensor, the EOS M3 delivers really nice results at low ISOs, with plenty of detail and little visible noise. At ISO 400 noise starts to become visible at the pixel level, but it’s unlikely to have much impact even on a large print (A3 or 12 x 18in). At ISO 800 shadow detail begins to block up in the camera’s JPEGs, and the raw files indicate that noise is now becoming very visible. Even so, JPEG files remain very usable to ISO 3200 at least, although beyond this low-frequency chroma noise becomes a problem. The top ISOs are very noisy, and ideally need careful processing from raw.

Below are 100% crops from raw files processed using Adobe Camera Raw 8.0 at default noise reduction settings.