Every since the compact mirror-less Canon EOS M camera has been announced, it has generated quite come, buzz. As an EOS camera, the EOS M does come with the Canon EOS Utility, a small program that can be used to download images into specific folder, but more importantly, it is an app that photographers use for remote shooting, which means that the images shot are save directly to a computer driver over USB. I have bad news for everyone who was waiting for this feature: the Canon EOS M does not support it.
I tried with my own unit here at the office…. Before the launch, information found in the official specifications (pdf link) and informally gathered from Canon official channels indicated the presence of the EOS Utility. People then just assumed that Remote Shooting would work because the Canon EOS M is very similar to the Rebel 650D, also called Rebel T4i in the USA.
This extract of the specs sheet hints towards Remote Shooting support. That’s not the case in reality
It is not clear why Canon decided to castrate the EOS M from this feature, making it the only EOS camera without Remote Shooting ability. In all likelihood, this is due to some artificial market segmentation that makes no sense for the end-user.
Photographers who were dreaming of replacing their bulky DSLR which are connected to telescopes, or used for long time-lapse projects will be sorely disappointed. Without this function, the EOS M loses a huge (potential) edge against other compact mirror-less cameras. That is really a poor decision from Canon.