Canon EOS M5 Performance

Very good overall performance for its class.

Powering on and taking a shot was a little faster than average for a mirrorless camera, taking about 1.2 seconds. Switching from Play to Record and taking a shot also took about 1.2 seconds.

In terms of the Canon M5's ability to determine that it's properly focused when shooting the same target multiple times using the EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM kit lens, its full autofocus shutter response was quite fast a mirrorless camera. We measured only 0.143 second for full AF shutter lag using single point (center) AF. That's faster than many mirrorless cameras and faster than some prosumer DSLRs as well. Enabling the built-in flash added considerable delay for the pre-flash metering, though, resulting in a capture lag of about 0.43 second.

Shutter lag with manual focus was good at 0.132 second. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure resulted in a lag time of only 0.056 second, also quite good for a mirrorless camera.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times were quite good, taking about 0.5 second for best quality JPEGs, and about 0.6 second for RAW+ L/F JPEG files. (Note that we no longer test single-shot mode with just RAW files, as the results are usually somewhere in between JPEG and RAW+JPEG modes.)

Full-resolution continuous mode speeds were very good at between 9.2 and 9.4 frames per second depending on the file type, easily meeting Canon's 9 fps spec, though keep in mind that's with AF and AE locked at the first frame. Canon says up to 7 fps is possible with continuous AF, however we don't test that in the lab.

Buffer depth for best quality JPEGs was decent at 27 frames, though our test target was designed to be difficult to compress, so you might do better with typical real-world scenes. Also note that the buffer-full rate was pretty good at almost 5.5 frames per second. When shooting RAW files, buffer depth dropped to 18 frames, and 17 frames for RAW+JPEG. Buffer-full rates were about 2.3 and 1.8 fps respectively.

Buffer clearing times were good considering the resolution and buffer depths, ranging from 4 seconds after 27 best quality JPEGs, to 10 seconds after a max-length burst of RAW+L/F JPEG frames. You cannot view just-shot images while the buffer is clearing, but you can change some settings such as focus and ISO sensitivity.

The Canon M5's built-in flash took an average of 2.5 seconds to recharge after a full-power discharge, which is good.

Bottom line, the Canon M5 generally offers very good performance for its class with decent startup time, fast autofocus, low shutter lag, quick single-shot cycle times and swift burst modes, though buffer depths at the highest burst speed, while good, aren't anything to write home about. Still, the EOS M5 is by far the best performing Canon mirrorless to date and overall performance is quite competitive with most rivals.

Battery Life
Below average battery life for mirrorless ILC.

The Canon M5 uses a custom LP-E17 rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a dedicated battery charger. Battery life is a bit below average for a mirrorless camera, rated at only 295 shots per charge with 50% using flash, and much lower than typical DSLRs. We recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand.

The table above shows the number of shots the Canon M5 is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))