CAMERAS
86 MARCH2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE385
GRADUATINGFROMYOURsmartphone
snapper to a‘proper’camera can be
intimidating: toomany features and controls
and it can get overwhelming, toofew and
there would be little point.
Enter the EOS M200. Arelative snip at
£499,ithas an APS-C sensor that dwarfsthat
of anysmartphone,and is compatible with all
of Canon’s compact, lightweight EF-M mount
lenses, or its DSLR lenses via an EF-EOS M
adaptor.Ithas ahandful of body-mounted
buttons, allowing beginners to turn it on and
start shooting, but it also offers plenty of
manual controls forphotographers who either
know what they’re doing or are keen to learn.
GROWINGATTACHMENT
The EF-M mount has arelatively decent
number of lenses,certainly in terms of the
kind of glass that advancing amateurs will
want. The M200 we reviewed came with
the 15-54mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STMlens; other
useful options include the 55-200mm
f/4.5-6.3 IS STMorthe 32mm f/1.4STM
forstreet photography.The M200 feels as
though it’s built forvloggers, which could
explain why all the EF-M lenses use STM
(Stepping Motor) focusing –ultra-smooth,
ultra-quiet lenses that allow you to use
tracking autofocus mid-take.
Of course,all the lenses in the world won’t
matter if the camera isn’t user-friendly.The
M200 looks, apart from the detachable lens
at the front, like acompact camera. The top
platehas ashutter button with aclick wheel
wrapped around it, apop-up flash, and avery
restricted version of the PASM modedial
you’ll find on fully fledged DSLRs. The mode
dial allows you to choose between shooting
videos, full autostills, or its ‘special scene
mode’, in which you can let the camera know
you’re shooting alandscape,sports and so on.
The option to shoot in shutter or aperture
priority,orfull manual mode (including the
option of manual aperture and shutte
with automatic ISO) is also there,
although its relatively well hidden.
The back of the camera is just
as simple.The 3in touchscreen
monitor has aresolution of 1.04
megapixels, which is respectable
–and fortunate, because there’s
no viewfinder.It’s an excellent
monitor that made framing up
easy,eveninbright sunlight.
Vloggers will love how it tilts: it
can flip vertically so it’s facing
forwards, making this agreat
camera forvideo stills and selfies.
CANON EOSM200
★★★★★
£499•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
Auser-friendly,well-made camera, albeit one
that’s mainly forbeginners
Next to the displayisatiny smattering of
buttons, which can fire up the menu and start
video recording. Open the menu system and
Canon users will find afamiliar system, with
reassuringly completeoptions. Forinstance,
you can set the AEL button on the direction
pad to trigger autofocus, allowing you to use
back-button focus–agood example of the
kind of advanced feature available on the
M200 with just alittle digging.
There are afew useful toys apart from
that 180° flipping screen, such as Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth. We’reused to seeing these on
virtually every Canon camera nowadays, but
they’re particularly appositehere, given that
the M200 is likely to be picked up by
photographers used to being able to share
directly from their device.
GO LOUD
The sensor is an APS-C model with 24.1
megapixels, which is towards the topofend
of resolutions you’ll see on asensor this size.
It gives you loads of latitude forcropping,
and our technical tests revealed acamera of
real quality.ToISO 1600 it takes very clean,
noise-free photos, with images only falling
apart after about ISO 6400.
There is noise present at other ISOs,
sometimes making itself felt at somewhat
surprising settings. At ISO 500, forexample,
we were alittle taken aback to find
pronounced levels of noise in fairly well-lit
scenes. That’s ashame,asitmeans the
M200’s high resolution and theoretically
croppable images actually can’t be zoomed
in as much as you might like before you
start encountering noise.
It holds up reasonably,but not incredibly
well, to other APS-C cameras. We compared
its ISO results to those of the Nikon D3500,
forexample,and preferred the D3500’s finer
noise at ISO 1600.
Otherwise,however,the M200 acquits
itself well. Colours are neutrally reproduced,
and overall quality is visibly better than you’d
get on even atop-end smartphone.
The video options are also pretty good.
Although the 25fps 4K setting prompts an
almost useless level of cropping –a1.6x crop
is added to the already substantial 1.6x crop
of the APS-C sensor –Full HD comes to the
rescue.You can shoot at 50, 30 or 25fps and
quality is great, with fast face detection and
little evidence of the rolling shutter effect.
Slow motion filming is available at up to
100fps, but only if you drop the resolution to
HD-Ready (720p). When we tried shoehorning
the M200’s 720p footageintoa1080p
timeline we were less than impressed; the
footage doesn’t seem to scale that nicely.
FIRST STEP
The EOS M200 is an interesting
camera. It’s certainly an affordable
one,and it’s quitepossible that
forvloggers who are happywith
talking-head footageat25fps from
areasonable selection of decent
lenses, it might just be the best
camera out there.Atthe same time,
image quality could be better,so
budding photographers who want to
appreciateevery little detail in their
shots should consider other APS-C
cameras such as the Nikon D3500.
g r F f t a l c i b a s c
