Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a pro photographer and a pixel peeper, I have owned 5 professional bodies starting with the 1D back in 2002. I have 11 Canon lenses. Let me start with a list of pros and cons of the m3 kit with 18-55mm kit lens. M3 Pros: +Low Noise +Well Built +Very Small +Dedicated EV dial +Grippy handgrip area +No Moire (great digital processing) Cons: -Finicky Menu layout -Tiny buttons -Buffer fills up fast when shooting RAW, I can get ~4 shots before I need to wait for the card to write. with a SanDisk Extreme PRO SDSDXPA-064G-X46 SDXC Flash Memory Card with up to 95MB/s 18-55mm Lens Pros: +Excellent Sharpness +Excellent Contrast +Great Colors +Small! Cons -Chromatic Aberrations everywhere past .5 (half the distance from the center of the lens to the edge of the lens) even stopped down -Vignetting -Barrel distortion -Slightly soft wide open The autofocus: In good lighting It is similar to a modern prosumer slr like the 5D maybe slightly faster. With the kit lens in auto mode it always stays focused wherever I point it, very snappy. With other full size Canon EF lenses it can hunt a bit in auto mode to the point where you want to turn off auto mode and put it into focus on demand mode where you half press the shutter button like any slr. It has a bit more trouble with telephoto lenses, and slower consumer lenses. It slows down slightly indoors but is still of slr speed. Indoors it really needs the infrared focus assist light to be quick, but you have the option to turn off that front red light. Let's approach this realistically... Is this camera going to beat a top end slr? Is this lens going to give a $2000 lens a run for it's money? No. That all being said, this is an excellent kit for anyone from your pro photog who wants a walk-around body, to a family going on vacation. For it's size and price it's a must buy! Some of the greatest photos were not taken on the best equipment, they were taken on small portable cameras. There's a great adage we pros used to use in the film days: " f/8 and be there!" Meaning being present for the event is 90% of the photo. This is just like owning a DSLR body in a tiny frame. Great unobtrusive camera. And with the adapter to attach your canon lenses and speedlites this camera has some serious guts to backup your kit in a pinch. If you want a camera for family or vacation this is the one to get to have amazing pictures! Just set it to full auto and its all the point and shoot you would ever need!