Yet again I’m talking about new Canon gear, this time 2 new lenses and a new EOS M body. Additionally, I spend a bit of time talking about packing gear and some of my thoughts on that matter.

New Canon Gear

Try as I might, I can’t quite get away from talking about new Canon products yet. Not long after the 5D mark IV was released, Canon announced 2 new lenses (one EF and one EF-M), and a new EOS M, the EOS M5.

EF 70–300mm f/4–5.6 IS II USM

I want to start with the new EF 70–300mm f/4–5.6 IS II USM. This is a replacement for the 11 year old EF 70–300mm f/4–5.6 IS USM. And a lot has changed in optical engineering since the mid 2000s, even if it doesn’t seem like that long ago.

As far as image quality goes, at least based on the MTF charts, the new lens looks to be a very significant upgrade. I owned the lens it’s replacing, many years ago, and it certainly wasn’t the best lens I’ve ever owned, so an image quality upgrade is definitely welcome.

The real big design changes in the new 70–300 though are the new AF system and the LCD display for the distance scale.

Traditionally lenses have used a helical track system of some sort to convert the rotation of a focusing ring into a linear movement of a lens elements. Even AF lenses that haven’t directly coupled the manual focus ring to the focusing elements have tended to use this arrangement. The new 70–300, however, does not. Instead the ultrasonic motor works linearly, shifting the focusing elements for and aft directly.

You can see this in action in Canon’s announcement video for the lens at about 52 seconds in.

This AF arrangement has to consequences in terms of the controls on the lens. One is that the lens must be an electronic manual focus design. There’s really no other way to couple a rotating ring to the linearly drive mechanism.

The second is that a traditional distance scale, which is nothing more than a graduated ring attached to the rotating helicoid, no longer possible.

Canon’s solution to the distance scale issue is actually, in my opinion, pretty innovative. They’re using an LCD display.

Back in 2010 I looked at the utility of a modern AF lens’s distance scale compared to what was available on old manual focus lenses. The reality is, with the shift to AF designs, the distance scale has become a pale echo of what it once was. A lot of that is due to the physical constraints of having to interact directly with the mechanical parts of the lens.

However, the new LCD scale on the new 70–300 brings back the ability to deal with most of the lost utility. Admittedly, I think there’s still some room to improve. Canon still uses a simulated rotating distance scale in the distance scale mode, a nice skewmorphic design I guess, but 3 numbers representing the near DoF limit, the focusing distance, and the far DoF limit would be more precise and wouldn’t have quite the problems with drawing depth of field marks.

Other modes include the focal length, which automatically displays the 35mm equivalent focal length for crop sensors. And a lens shake scale that shows how much the lens is shaking in pitch and yaw.

I have to say, the new distance scale really seems like a big step forward. It’s not perfect, but it’s also no longer limited to a single function with limited precision due to the underlying mechanical system.

Preorder the EF 70–300mm f/4–5.6 IS II USM on Amazon^{(Affiliate Link)} .

EF-M 18–150mm f/3.5–6.3 IS STM

The second lens on the announcement parade is the EF-M 18–150mm f/3.5–6.3 IS STM. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this honestly. It’s a 8.3x super zoom class lens that’s apparently targeted at being the new kit lens for the EOS M5. The zoom range is certainly nice for a entry level user, but getting that, and keeping the compact package does push the f-number 1/3 stop above an already slow f/5.6.

That said, Canon has implied in their comments about the EOS M system that it is intended for entry level enthusiasts. So this kind of lens makes sense in that context. On the other hand lenses are, in my opinion, the biggest weakness of the EOS M system. Specifically the lack of relatively fast zooms (f/2.8–4) and fast compact primes (like the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM).

In any event, between the EF-M 18–150 and the EOS M5, Canon clearly isn’t abandoning the EOS M platform. They are, however, taking a slow deliberate approach to building it out though.

Preorder the EF-M 18–150mm f/3.5–6.3 IS STM on Amazon^{(Affiliate Link)} .

EOS M5

The final new announcement is the EOS M5, the latest in Canon’s line of EOS M series cameras. Personally, I think the EOS M5 looks pretty slick, but I’m also a bit of an oddball apparently in that I like the EOS M series.

The M5 brings a whole lot of solid to the table in so far as the camera goes. While it retains the same 24.2 MP resolution of the EOS M3, it uses the newest Canon sensor tech. This means dual pixel AF, and more important on sensor ADCs for increased dynamic range and reduced noise. Image quality wise, I would expect the M5 to be very comparable to the EOS 80D.

At the heart of the new EOS M5 is Canon’s new Digic 7 processor. The improved performance of the new SoC delivers some pretty impressive results. Canon is claiming that the M5 can shoot at 7 FPS with AF enabled, and 9 FPS with AF locked. 7 FPS is on part with that of my 5D mark IV, and hostly nothing to sneeze at.

In addition to the increased frame rate, Canon claims the M5 has much better tracking capabilities with the AF system. This of course, will be greatly appreciated. The original EOS M was not a performer in the autofocus department — even with firmware updates. The EOS M3 is pretty solid, but it’s not nearly as solid as the dual pixel AF operation in my 5D mark IV. With dual pixel AF finally reaching the EOS M5, I expect performance will be quite solid.

Canon has also revised the UI on the EOS M5. In part making it more SLR like, with a built in central EVF. The builtin EVF allowed Canon to move the built in flash, which allowed them to move the mode dial to the left shoulder like it is on most of their SLRs. That in turn allowed Canon to add another programmable control dial, for a total of 3 control dials on the top of the camera — one around the shutter release, the new one, and a dedicated exposure compensation dial.

About the only real complaint I have with the UI/UX design of the EOS M5 is the articulating LCD. Because of the fixed EVF, Canon has elected to make the LCD rotate down to face forward instead of up. This may not be an issue for most users, but anybody who’s trying to shoot video of themselves form a tripod using the built in LCD as a monitor will have a problem.

Preorder the EOS M5 on Amazon^{(Affiliate Link)} .

Packing Gear for Travel

The second part of this podcast is an open discussion about packing gear for travel. The reality though is that this is a massive and will be an ongoing topic for me. I’m not even going to attempt to summarize all the various points I talk about in text here; sorry. That said, the key points I think are these.

1. Start by understanding what you’ll be doing, e.g., hiking, working from a car, working in a studio.
2. Understand what kind of content you’ll be shooting and what lenses that demands.
3. Use points 1 and 2 to influence the board scale choices for gear and bag.
4. Start trying to pack the gear, don’t be afraid to throw out the manufacturer’s preconfigured divider arrangements and figure out something that works better for you.

Some other things to consider. Putting a lens on your body and carrying it that way can make getting from bag to shot faster, but can have a negative impact on what you can fit in your bag.

One major observation I’ve made, is that every 1/8 inch often counts. If you use protection filters, consider buying thin ones like B+W’s XS-Pro line instead of thicker ones like B+W’s older F-pro line. Also, center pinch lens caps are almost universally thicker than edge pinch only — something to think about.

One final note on size thing, and this is an open question to judge interest. I shoot EF lenses, which means that Canon’s rear lens caps add an extra 1/8–1/4 inch or so to the overall length of the lens. I’m considering getting some custom rear caps made, potentially out of aluminum but maybe plastic — depending on the cost and demands and so forth. If this sounds like something that you might be interested in, please drop a comment and let me know.