Canon eos 7d mk II

The go-faster camera that edges into fully professional-grade territory, with top-notch build quality and handling

built as an APS-C format digital camera to suit professional photographers, the original 7D was launched back in 2009 and wasn’t updated until 2014. The Mark II has also now been on sale for nearly five years, but still looks fresh and bang up-to-date. It has solid, weathersealed build quality, with a tough magnesium alloy construction and a control interface that’s similar to the 5D range of full-frame cameras. As such, there’s a separate joysticklike multi-controller and quick command dial, unlike the concentric arrangement of the more enthusiast-grade 80D.

Something of an action hero, the 7D Mark II has a class-leading autofocus system with 65 AF points (all cross-type) spread across a large region of the image frame. It’s particularly good at tracking fast-moving objects, with a large selection of ‘case’ options that tailor tracking to different shooting scenarios. It also has an upgraded metering module, with 150k pixels and 252 zones, compared with the 7.56k pixels and 63 zones of the 800D, 77D and 80D. A sign of its age, however, is that only the central AF point is available at f/8.

Build and handling

While the build and handling is ideally suited to professional photographers and the most demanding of enthusiasts, the 7D Mark II is also something of a speed demon. Like the 80D, shutter speeds of up to 1/8000th of a second are available but, this time, with a super-fast drive rate of 10fps. Buffer depth is increased for unlimited JPEG capture at this speed, instead of the 80D’s 110

The biggest and heaviest camera in the group, the 7D Mark II is a real handful, but in a good way, with sublime handling and ergonomics

The lack of a vari-angle LCD enables the inclusion of a vertical row of buttons on the left at the rear