• It was a classic defensive move from a tech company that wanted to keep competitors at bay.
• Canon debuted its first mirrorless camera, the EOS M.
• The Canon EOS M’s dive bar is across the street from where its spiritual successors.

Ten years ago today, Canon debuted its first mirrorless camera, the EOS M. But the forgotten original won’t be having a big party – instead, it’ll be drinking Jack Daniels in a dive bar and whispering to the Nikon J1 about what could have been.

The Canon EOS M wasn’t really made to rule the world. It was a classic defensive move from a tech company that wanted to keep photographers from looking at new mirrorless players like the Sony NEX-7, the cute Olympus PEN E-P3, and the impressive Samsung NX200.

But what’s interesting about the Canon EOS M is how history seems to be repeating itself almost ten years later. The Canon EOS M’s dive bar is across the street from where its spiritual successors, the Canon EOS R7 and EOS R10, are having their two-month birthday party.

The most obvious difference between these two cameras and the EOS M is that they use the same RF-mount as Canon’s full-frame mirrorless cameras. This makes sense. Instead of putting its hobbyist and professional cameras in different families that can’t work together, Canon is finally following Sony and Nikon’s one-mount strategy. This means that its two new mirrorless cameras should be some of the best ones for beginners.

But the EOS M and Canon’s new APS-C mirrorless cameras have one thing in common: neither has any built-in lenses. Ten years after the late release of its first mirrorless camera, the camera giant’s EOS R7 and EOS R10 seem to kill off the whole EF-M family. But will those cameras avoid the biggest mistake the EOS M made?