Canon EOS 7D DSLR Camera

In the five years since its launch, the Canon EOS 7D has gone from being a cutting-edge piece of technology to an apparent remnant of a bygone age. Not simply in the sense that its technology has been superseded, but also in that the idea of a pro-grade APS-C DSLR seemed to one whose time had passed.Canon clearly doesn’t think this is the case and, just as it did with the original 7D, has applied truly pro-grade auto-focus to one of its best-built bodies. While Nikon appears to be encouraging its high-end users across to full frame, Canon’s range continues to offer a range of options. The long-awaited EOS 7D Mark II takes the strengths of its predecessor – highly capable auto-focus and video – and builds on every aspect of them.

Canon EOS 7D Mark II key specifications:

• 20MP Dual-Pixel AF CMOS Sensor
• 10 fps continuous shooting with auto-focus
• 65 all cross-type auto-focus sensor
• 150,000 RGB + IR pixel metering sensor
• Dual Digic 6 processors
• Enhanced environmental sealing
• Compact Flash (UDMA) and SD (UHS-I) slots
• USB 3.0
• Built-in GPS
• Larger-capacity LP-E6N battery
• Shutter speeds up to 1/8000th seconds
• Shutter rated to 200,000 cycles (vs 150,000 on 7D)

Continuous Shooting and Buffering:

While not quite as fast as the 12 frames per second EOS 1D X, the 7D Mark II’s 10 frames per second is still blazing fast. Although it supports both high speed and low speed shooting rates, we’re assuming that most people are really interested in high speed performance. Here’s how the Mark II performed in our hands:

Viewfinder Shooting: All timings performed using a 64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I SDHC card (280MB/s) card.

One of the highlights of the EOS 7D Mark II is undoubtedly the 65-point, all cross-type auto-focus system. Let’s just stipulate up front that this focus system is very fast. It’s easy to see in One Shot focus mode when the AF points light up almost instantly upon pressing the shutter button. Exactly how fast it focuses does, of course, depend on what lens you have attached to the camera, but there’s no doubt the AF system consistently finds a target and focuses very quickly.

This is the type of performance we’ve come to expect from dedicated phase detect auto-focus systems – fast focus and tracking of subjects moving toward and away from the camera are the name of the game when it comes to dedicated phase detect auto-focus. In fact, these abilities are some of the biggest reasons pros and enthusiasts spring for DSLRs over their mirror-less counterparts.As mentioned above, the 7D II’s 10 fps shooting is creeping into EOS 1D X territory, and in our testing the auto-focus system is up to the task. In AI Servo mode the system does an impressive job of tracking a quickly moving subject toward or away from the camera. Even when you press the shutter button and start firing off shots at 10 fps it does an excellent job of maintaining focus between frames. In the series of photos of the bicyclist below it’s possible to see the AF points tracking right along with the bicycle rider the whole way.

During several weeks of testing both pre-production and production models of the 7D II, we were consistently impressed with its focus speed and ability to maintain focus even at the fastest frame rates. It’s lightning quick and fun to use. What makes the AF system on the Mark II even more interesting, however, is the addition of iTR.

Intelligent Tracking and Recognition (iTR):

We know that the 7D Mark II is capable of focusing extremely fast, but with iTR the question turns from “Will it focus fast enough?” to “What will it focus on?” There are two components worth discussing here: First is the camera’s ability to recognize a face, and second is its ability to track a face or other subject once it has been acquired.

With iTR engaged and the camera set to select the initial AF point based on the contents of the scene, the AF system reliably identifies and focuses on faces. One built-in assumption here is that the face must be large enough to be recognizable to the metering sensor, which has significantly less resolution to recognize patterns than the full sensor does in live view mode. In practice, as long as a face fills about one third of the vertical space of the AF area (in horizontal orientation) the camera usually gets it right. Things get a bit more complex if there are multiple faces in the frame, in which case the camera will generally focus on the largest (and likely closest) face first.

iTR will prioritize focus on faces, however it also uses color patters and other details in the image, in addition to subject distance, when deciding what subject to focus on and how to track it. This means that if you’re shooting a non-human subject the AF system will still attempt to track your subject as it moves. You can let the system automatically choose the starting AF point(s) based on the scene, however in the iTR settings one can also tell the system to begin with a user-designated AF point and track from there as well. This can be useful for “focus-and-recompose” shooting approach.

Tracking with iTR can be a bit of a mixed bag. There’s no doubt that the system is able to track subjects, but where it sometimes struggles is how quickly it can track them. As long as your subject doesn’t move too quickly the AF points generally do a good job of remaining on top of it. Once a subject starts moving quickly, however, it’s often possible to see the AF points lagging behind the subject a bit. If you press the shutter too soon you may end up taking a photo before the points catch up with your subject.

One situation where we see this in practice is when using a variant of the “focus-and-recompose” technique in which you initiate focus using the center AF point(s), then allow the camera to automatically move the AF points to stay on your subject as you recompose. As long as you don’t recompose too quickly iTR will generally keep the AF points over the subject, however the points don’t follow your subject with the finesse and accuracy of Nikon’s 3D tracking and sometimes get lost. A an example can be seen in the Shooting Experience section of this review.

Overall, the system works reasonably well, but isn’t quite on par with the best tracking systems we’ve tested. We found the AF points tend to wander off the subject from time to time, so the system isn’t always as accurate as we’d like it to be. It also doesn’t show the same level of confidence as Nikon’s 3D tracking, which will dedicate one AF point that uncannily sticks to your subject as it moves. We’re very impressed with the camera’s ability to identify faces, but would like to see Canon focus on the tracking capabilities in future bodies.

One potential trade-off to using iTR is that it slows down the AF system a bit. There’s a lot of information being processed when iTR is active, so this isn’t completely surprising. In practice, we didn’t find this to be noticeable in all but the most demanding scenarios. However, if you’re in a situation where focus speed is absolutely critical, or where faces are of negligible importance, it’s probably worth leaving it turned off.

Live View Shooting (Dual-Pixel AF):

Live view shooting on the 7D II is generally a very good experience thanks to the Dual-Pixel auto-focus system. In our tests of Dual-Pixel auto-focus on the EOS 70D we found it to be extremely accurate and precise, and the 7D II appears to perform just as well in real world use.

Face detection when shooting in live view mode is outstanding, and the Mark II’s ability track faces or other subjects is stellar. Even if the subject or the photographer is moving, the camera will generally keep the focus point locked on the initial subject no matter which direction it moves. Even if the subject briefly leaves the frame entirely, the camera will usually reacquire it should it re-enter the frame within a second or two. (In fact, this sort of tracking is what we’d love to see in optical viewfinder shooting as well!)

One area where live view operation lets down is during continuous shooting. Dual-Pixel auto-focus is very effective at tracking moving objects, but the continuous shooting feature doesn’t take advantage of it. The camera does let you shoot continuously, however it locks focus as soon as you press the shutter halfway and the screen blacks out, leaving the focus point locked to it’s original position while shooting.There are some (though not many) limits to how well this works. Dual-Pixel AF in live view isn’t as fast as focusing through the viewfinder, so it may not work for quickly moving subjects.

In the series of photos of the biker below, you can see where the AF point locked focus and remained in place for the duration of the burst.

For focus-critical applications, the 7D II provides both 5x and 10x magnification options when performing manual focus in live view.

Flicker detection

The 7D Mark II also has the ability to detect and respond to flicker from a light source that you’re shooting under. At its most basic, this entails an in-viewfinder warning that the camera has detected flicker in the lighting. This can be useful if you’re planning to shoot video, since it encourages the use of different shutter speeds, to avoid fluctuating brightness during your video. More than just warning you, though, the camera will also sync its continuous shooting to match the peak brightness of the light’s flicker cycle. This can reduce the continuous shooting rate but should avoid the inconsistent image brightness between frames that can occur when shooting under artificial lighting.

Video Features

As you’d expect, the video features on the 7D II are a considerable step forward from a 5-year-old camera that was only Canon’s third HD-capable DSLR. The Mark II can capture 1080p footage at 60, 50, 30, 25 and 24fp, with the option to shoot in NTSC-friendly 23.97 or true 24fps. It uses a variable bit rate H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec, records to either .MOV or .MP4 files, and adds a third compression method (IPB-Lite) to the existing All-I and IPB options.

Canon has made a lot of noise about the usefulness of Dual-Pixel auto-focus for shooting video. This hype isn’t without some merit. Dual-Pixel AF has the potential to be a game changer in terms of how auto-focus is used for shooting video. It should be able to eliminate some of the artifacts associated with traditional video cameras such as the back and forth focus hunting typical of contrast detect AF systems.The dual Digic 6 processors are powerful enough to allow real-time application of lens corrections to video footage, if you’re using a supported Canon lens, which should reduce the risk of distortion and vignetting differences being visible if you’re changing lenses, mid-shoot.

It’s worth noting that Dual-Pixel auto-focus has also been made available as an upgrade feature on Canon’s C100 and C300 cinema cameras. These are high quality motion picture cameras used by professional filmmakers and videographers, and the general response to Dual-Pixel auto-focus has been enthusiastic; more than a few C100 and C300 owners have paid several hundred dollars just to upgrade their cameras to Dual-Pixel AF. This should be a good indicator of the potential for Dual-Pixel auto-focus as a video tool.

One feature you won’t find on the 7D II is 4K video recording. It’s a little bit surprising given the number of recent cameras that support this feature, but it doesn’t mean that the Mark II isn’t a capable video camera. However, if you really, truly do need 4K you’ll need to look elsewhere. Otherwise, read on.

Video Specifications:

The table below lists all the 7D Mark II’s video recording options. Note that true 24p frame rate and IPB light compression are only available when recording in MP4 format.

Video Controls:

All standard shooting modes (PASM) are supported when shooting video, which is great for casual shooters who may want to just capture a quick video. However, most serious videographers and filmmakers will likely want to use manual mode to control all exposure variables for the best quality results.

Video mode shares the same picture styles available in stills mode. There’s no dedicated flat cine-like picture style, however there are three user customization picture styles that could be used for this purpose. (Although we didn’t get a chance to test it, it’s possible that Technicolor’s Cine-style profile for Canon EOS will work on the 7D II.)

As with other DSLR cameras designed for shooting video, the 7D II does not include any built in neutral density filters. When shooting video, it’s typically desirable to use a shutter speed of 1/2 the frame rate (e.g. shutter speed of 1/50th of a second when shooting at 24 fps) in order achieve a pleasing level of motion blur similar to what would be produced by a 180 degree shutter on a film camera.

This means that in bright light it’s often necessary to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor in order to get the shutter speed down to where you want it. Professional video cameras typically have one or more ND filters built in for this reason, but that’s a bit impractical with a DSLR. As a result, most videographers will want to have some type of external ND filter(s) on hand for bright situations.

Auto-focus: On-screen controls for shooting video are fairly complete and straightforward, including a live histogram that disappears once recording is started. However, what’s more notable is what’s missing on-screen; the 7D II does not include focus peaking to assist with manual focus or zebra stripes to help evaluate exposure. This is disappointing as both are very useful controls when shooting video and are becoming fairly common on other cameras.

Video is where Dual-Pixel auto-focus really gets a chance to shine, and it’s no surprise that this technology is also making its way into Canon’s cinema cameras.

When using Movie Servo AF mode, the camera can focus continuously even when the shutter is not pressed. Even before you start shooting you can detect a qualitative difference in the way this focus system adjusts relative to cameras that use contrast detect auto-focus when shooting video.

With contrast detect auto-focus, a camera will adjust focus towards a subject until it gets sharp, however it will often continue past the subject until the edges begin to blur again. Once it detects that it has passed its point of sharpest focus, it reverses focus in the other direction and repeats the process. It keeps repeating the process in finer steps until it’s convinced it has reached the sharpest point of focus. The result is the classic back-and-forth focus hunting, or ‘flutter’, that we often associate with the look of a focusing video camera.

With Dual-Pixel auto-focus, each pixel on the imaging sensor effectively has a phase detect auto-focus sensor built into it. When it achieves focus it knows it and stops. Subjects often feel like they’re just sliding into focus, and the focus hunting typically associated with video cameras really doesn’t occur. (That’s not to say it never occurs, but it’s infrequent and generally happens in low light.)

The benefit of all this is that the AF system should be able to follow subjects more effectively and with a more natural look than cameras without Dual-Pixel auto-focus. It could also allow for very natural looking focus pulls that would normally require a dedicated focus puller to achieve, such as racking focus between two people in a scene. There’s a lot of potential here.

The smoothness of Dual-Pixel AF in video is a bit lens dependent. With most newer lenses it’s reasonably fast and generally smooth, though we got the best results with Canon’s STM lenses which have a stepper motor designed specifically for this type of application. The speed of the servo AF can even be slowed down to achieve a slower focus effect, but you’ll need to be in Flexible Zone-Single mode and be using USM lenses from 2009 or newer or STM lenses to do this.

There’s one big GOTCHA! with regards to auto-focus in video mode. When you record in 60p/50p you lose both Dual-Pixel auto-focus and Servo focus mode. This is unfortunate as it significantly limits the usefulness of these frame rates for certain types of applications. It also drives home how useful it would be to have focus peaking to assist with manual focus, but unfortunately the camera doesn’t have it.

Silent Control:

One feature that’s not obvious from looking at the camera, but which once again establishes control consistency with the 5D Mark III, is Silent Control. The inner ring of the thumb wheel has a touch sensitive surface with primary controls at the up, down, left, and right positions. (Go back and look at the rear photos of the camera and you’ll see small dots on those spots.)

These aren’t buttons that depress, but touch sensitive surfaces, meaning you can tap them lightly with your thumb and change a setting without the movement or noise associated with pressing a physical button.

Silent Control is disabled by default. When activated you can press the Quick Control button during video recording and a vertical menu of settings which includes shutter speed, aperture, ISO, exposure compensation, audio record level, and headphone volume appears on the left side of the screen. Lightly tapping the top and bottom of the ring cycles through the settings, while tapping the left and right sides of the ring adjusts the currently selected setting.

Audio:Silent control is not a replacement for a touch screen. But while it provides less functionality than a true touch screen, it provides something a touch screen doesn’t – like a button or dial it provides tactile feedback and is easy to operate without looking. Once you get a feel for it it’s very easy to adjust settings on the fly, particularly when shooting handheld.

The 7D II has a built in microphone with monaural sound, which is pretty much useless for anything other than syncing to sound recorded off-camera. There are also the fairly standard 3.5mm stereo mic input as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack (which the original 7D famously lacked). Recording levels are adjustable in 64 steps, and there is a wind filter option. The 7D II meets minimum requirements for sound, but there’s nothing to write home about.

White Balance:

Setting manual white balance is often critical to video shooters since there is no Raw video option, meaning you have less latitude to correct white balance in post. This is especially true if you’re recording several shots that will be edited together into a sequence. If the white balance changes between cuts within a scene it’s distracting and looks amateurish. As a result, a lot of filmmakers are disciplined about setting manual white balance when shooting.

Many cameras with video capability have made this process very easy. Just open live view, point your camera at a gray card with the white balance settings open, and press a button to set white balance. But not on the 7D II. Despite it’s excellent live view functionality, setting white balance for video on the Mark II falls back on the old DSLR method of using a still image. You first take a close-up still image of your gray card, dive into the menu system to find the white balance settings, then select a still image to set WB. It’s unnecessarily more complex than it needs to be.

Canon has designed the EOS 7D II to work as a camera head in a rig with an external recorder and comes with a clip-on USB/HDMI support to protect the cables when connected. The camera can output 4:2:2 8-bit video over HDMI (as opposed to 4:2:0 internally) with audio and time-code, and can also record to a card simultaneously, though doing so limits recording time to 30 minutes.Connections:

In addition to providing a clean video signal over HDMI, there’s also an option for mirrored output that includes the camera’s displays overlaid on the video. The other feature to benefit rigged-up working is that the camera’s shutter button can be customized to initiate video recording. This becomes useful in that it means a shutter release cable has the same effect.