  Aims. In this work we aim to estimate the lowest stellar mass that MICADO at
the ELT will be able to reliably detect given a stellar density and distance.
We also show that instrumental effects that will play a critical role, and
report the number of young clusters that will be accessible for IMF studies in
the local Universe with the ELT.
  Methods. We used SimCADO, the instrument simulator package for the MICADO
camera, to generate observations of 56 dense stellar regions with densities
similar to the cores of young stellar clusters. We placed the cluster fields at
distances between 8 kpc and 5 Mpc from the Earth, implying core densities from
10^2 to 10^5 stars arcsec^-2, and determined the lowest reliably observable
mass for each stellar field through point-spread function (PSF) fitting
photometry.
  Results. Our results show that stellar densities of <10^3 stars arcsec^-2
will be easily resolvable by MICADO. The lowest reliably observable mass in the
Large Magellanic Cloud will be around 0.1 Msun for clusters with densities
<10^3 stars arcsec^-2. MICADO will be able to access the stellar content of the
cores of all dense young stellar clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, allowing
the peak and shape of the IMF to be studied in great detail outside the Milky
Way. At a distance of 2 Mpc, all stars with M > 2 Msun will be resolved in
fields of <10^4 stars arcsec^-2 , allowing the high-mass end of the IMF to be
studied in all galaxies out to and including NGC300.

Astrophysics of Galaxies;Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;Solar and Stellar Astrophysics