A good sport Is the 7D Mark II worth the five-year wait for the upgrade to Canon’s most enthusiastfriendly SLR? Angela Nicholson finds out
s you might guess from its name, the new Canon EOS 7D Mark II replaces the Canon 7D. It therefore assumes its place above the APS-C format Canon 70D and below the full-frame Canon 5D Mark II in the Canon SLR line-up. Inside is a new 20.2-millioneffective-pixel sensor with redesigned micro-lenses that allow more light to pass through onto the photo diodes.
To boost performance and enable a maximum continuous shooting rate of 10 frames per second, Canon has given the new camera two Digic 6 processing engines. When a UDMA 7 CF card (such as the Lexar Professional 1066x card) is installed, up to 31 raw files or 1,030 JPEGs can be shot in a single burst. If you need to shoot for more than 3.1 seconds, the High continuous shooting rate can be set between 2-10fps, while the Low rate can be set to 1-9fps and Silent mode to 1-4fps.
The sensor and processing engine combination also allows a native sensitivity range of ISO 100–16,000, the widest of any Canon camera. If it’s not enough, there are expansion settings going up to ISO 51,200.
While the 7D has 19 autofocus points, all of which are cross-type, its replacement has a class-leading
A65 points; again, all are cross-type. With f/2.8 lenses, the central point is dual-cross type for extra sensitivity and is capable of operating when lens and teleconverter combinations take the effective aperture down to f/8. It’s also possible to adjust tracking sensitivity, acceleration/deceleration tracking and AF point auto switching options. There are also seven AF point selection modes.
In Live View and video mode, the Dual Pixel AF system comes into play. Videographers will love the ability to slow the focusing down to produce a more cinematic transition.
Other notable features include dual card slots (one SD/SDHC/ SDXC, the other CompactFlash); an intervalometer for shooting timelapse sequences; HDR mode (with raw file recording); multiple exposure mode; a built-in compass; and GPS to enable image geotagging. Sadly, there’s no Wi-Fi connectivity built in. A Canon Europe representative told us the Mark II’s metal body may compromise Wi-Fi performance.
Build and handling
Canon has retained the 7D’s magnesium alloy construction for the Mark II, but it has uprated its weather-proofing so that it is the second most weather-resistant Canon SLR after the 1Dx. This may in part explain the 90g increase in weight and slightly larger size. In any case, the camera feels nice and solid, and