Canon EOS 7D Mark II Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

NEVER AGAIN buying from a “non authorized dealer” I have always bought over the counter from a dealer. This is the first time I tried to save money and purchased from CENTRE DRONE. DO NOT buy from CENTRE DRONE, they are a back alley operation. My camera ended up dying in the middle of a photo shoot. Battery was charged, shutter just stopped working on first assignment. Luckily I had a back up camera. CENTRE DRONE’S product was definitely Grey Market as it showed up without warranty cards. Not worth saving a few bucks.

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NEWEST (and I’m pretty sure FINAL) UPDATE, 09/09/2015:

I had to make one final update to this review: Canon has fully corrected the focus problems with the EF-S 17-55 mm lens with firmware update version 1.0.5! Single point focus with the center point now works perfectly at all focal lengths of this lens.

My EF-S 17-55 mm is now spot on using the center point, with only mild AFMA corrections of W=-1 and T=+2. This is way better than the +5/+6 values I had previously, and even with those corrections the camera still missed focus using the center point, as I described in my earlier updates. Now, it’s pretty much perfect.

So, if you’re reading this review for the first time, read the ORIGINAL REVIEW, below. With autofocus of the 17-55 lens now correct, everything I originally wrote is unconditionally true. If you want to see what all the fuss with the autofocus was about, skip down the page to see the previous review updates that describe the focus problems.

Canon, my hat is off to you. Well done. Back to 5 stars from 4.

ORIGINAL REVIEW
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An exceedingly good APS-C camera body that offers pro level features at a hobbyist price. This camera will excel at sports and wildlife shooting, as well as doing a great job on just about everything else.

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Pros:

Interface –

The interface is consistent with Canon pro and prosumer DSLRs, especially the 5D3. It does a good job accommodating the many different tracking modes and many different focus point layouts of the sophisticated autofocus system. Focus point or area selection is quick and greatly aided by the thumb lever on the joystick. The lever is not at all easily activated by accident, and I have large, strong hands and a touch that could hardly be described as light. If, however, it is a concern that the lever might be activated accidentally, it can be deactivated with a lockout switch at the lower right of the body. The inclusion of a locking shooting mode select wheel is welcome. The viewfinder is impressive, both bright and with 100% coverage, and is capable of displaying an enormous amount of shooting information as well as gridlines and a digital level. Actually, the viewfinder can present so much information it can be overwhelming, but you can choose exactly what shooting information you want to show, and leave out the rest. The button layout is also typical Canon, which I like quite a lot. You can also customize most of the right hand buttons, the joystick, and the top and back dials with a variety of functions. Bottom line is this is a typical Canon interface with some very nice evolutionary touches.

ISO performance and overall image quality –

Much has been debated about this camera’s ISO capabilities. Many have decried it as being below state-of-the-art of sensor performance. My impression of the ISO performance is that it’s excellent for a crop camera. 100% views of RAW images that I’ve shot show very acceptable noise even at 6400 ISO. The luminance noise is finely patterned, and looks considerably like actual film grain. The color noise is relatively well controlled, and cleans up easily with software. With some modest noise reduction in post processing, nearly every photo I’ve taken at this ISO reaches quality I’d be happy to print at 13 x 19. Ordinary exposure pushing and pulling on badly exposed shots (within 2 stops, sometimes 3 ) does not destroy the image, and certainly doesn’t create the horrible blotches and bands I’ve seen with the Canon 50D and the original 7D. The Mark II is also a bit sharper and less noisy than the 70D up to ISO 6400 (which is as far as I compared them). I am quite pleased with this, and I can say I’m giving up little if anything in image quality to any other crop camera around. It’s good enough that I’ll gladly use this camera for all purposes, including portraits and landscapes. If you must have less noise, then you really should move to full frame.

At the time of writing this, the only photo editing software that can display 7D2 RAW files is Canon’s own Digital Photo Professional, which is mediocre (but free). Still, even using this software, I’m getting lovely images from the Mark II. It’ll be really interesting (and fun) to see what happens when companies like Adobe and Phase One update their editing software to convert the Mark II RAW images. I’m willing to bet my workflow for processing images in Phase One’s Capture One will become super simple, because I won’t have to spend as much time trying to clean up noise without trashing the overall image quality.

***Update on RAW conversion: Adobe and Phase One have updated their software to edit 7D2 RAW data. I have both Adobe Camera RAW and Capture One, but so far I’ve only used Capture One. As I had hoped, my workflow in Capture One is very simple. Image noise cleans up quite well, and I usually don’t have to stray from default noise reduction settings unless I’ve underexposed the image at 1600 ISO or higher. Highlights recover quite well. I estimate there’s enough latitude to safely overexpose at the highest tone value by about 1 stop while still being able to recover the highlights. The images also sharpen well, and have excellent contrast using the default tone curve (Capture One’s “Film” curves). In short, I haven’t had to spend more than a few minutes editing to get high quality images. For the best looking images at high ISO, I strongly recommend slight overexposure of midtones (expose to the right) followed by highlight recovery in the software of your choice, if necessary.

Autofocus performance –

AF is quick and exceedingly precise. With the lousy weather I’ve had little chance to see how well the 7D2’s new autofocus tracking system works when challenged, but I did have no trouble getting shots of a jumpy squirrel that was flitting around a tree (I was about 40 feet away, shooting with a 70-200 f/2.8). I took about a dozen shots, all in focus. The spread of the 65 AF points is excellent, so I had no trouble always having a focus point available for the little critter. For static shooting under ambient lighting, I’m seeing very few out of focus shots, and nearly all of those were due to a beat-up Canon zoom lens I have that has faulty autofocus to begin with. I’ve also missed a couple of test shots of black or dark objects in a dim room, but otherwise in low light the focus has been remarkably good. With f/2.8 lenses I get consistent focus lock in about -2EV light, which is quite dim (I estimate it takes about 1.5 seconds to lock focus at this light level). This is consistent with Canon’s specification that the camera will focus down to -4EV with f/1.4 lenses; actually, the performance is possibly a little better than the Canon specification (I say “possibly”, because the amount of light a lens passes isn’t just determined by aperture). Overall, this is pro level autofocus. A really neat antiflicker mode allows for shooting under stadium or gym lighting at high speeds while keeping the exposure uniform from frame to frame, instead of occasionally having darker frames due to light flicker.

I’ve had no problems using this camera body with third party lenses. Interestingly, I have a Tokina 11-16 lens that on two other Canon bodies has had flaky autofocus, especially when focusing to infinity. This lens on the 7D2 works perfectly, and I’m now able to leave it in autofocus mode all the time, whereas before I’d have to frequently use manual focus.

Speed –

Canon rates the shooting speed at 10 fps. I’m not getting 10 fps. With a 1066x UDMA 7 Compact Flash card I’m getting over 10, and to the best of my ability to measure, closer to 11! The buffer is deep enough for bursts of 31 full size RAW images, and something like 1000 full size JPGs. Again, this is performance usually associated with professional cameras.

Other –

Build quality is excellent. The thing is solid as a rock, feels good in the hand, and allows for easy handling of large lenses. The new shutter is relatively quiet for a DSLR, which is a nice bonus. A recent tear down of the 7D2 published online shows it has outstanding weather sealing, among the best ever in a DSLR.

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Cons:

The 7D2 is a battery pig, even with GPS off and screen set to auto brightness. I estimate that one might get 350 RAW frames from a single LP-E6 battery if lucky (I’ve yet to blow off a battery completely, but based on shutter count when removing a battery with about 15% estimated capacity remaining, 350 shots is probably right). The omission of WiFi has been criticized, but if they had managed to include it the additional power draw would have been made the mediocre battery life rather poor. Unfortunately the Canon original LP-E6 is quite pricey, and the Canon LP-E6N that comes with the camera is even pricier. However, there are a couple of third party solutions that work, but don’t count on them having the same quality as the Canon original. Some brands are really iffy, and even the better ones have spotty performance from battery to battery. I use LP-E6 equivalent batteries from SterlingTek, which will work in the charger and are chipped so the show shot count and battery life when installed in the camera. They seem to work pretty well, but don’t have quite the life of the Canon original.

***Update on battery life: the number of shots I can get is heavily dependent on my shot rate. Shooting at high speed consumes far less power per shot than taking single shots. Perhaps this is because I’m more likely to examine a single shot on the display, which consumes power. Or, possibly in single shot I’m more likely to take time setting up and will activate the focus several times before shooting, which drives the lens and the image stabilizer, using more power. Interestingly, I also seem to get more single shot frames if I first run off a hundred or so high speed burst frames, and then resume normal single shot shooting. This is a bit unexpected because Li ion batteries usually show less capacity as discharge rate increases, and I’d assume the high speed shooting is a high discharge case. But who knows – what I do see is that with a combination of high speed and normal shooting I can hit 600 to 800 frames per battery.

There appears to be a firmware bug involving the digital level. If the camera goes to sleep while displaying the level on the LCD, it may freeze in the sleep state requiring a battery removal. The thing is I’ve had it happen twice but haven’t been able to deliberately reproduce it, so it’s either random or there is a specific set of operations that I unknowingly performed to get it to happen. Likewise, there are a couple of instances in the interface where the icon used to represent a custom function is incorrect. I suspect both of these items could be easily fixed in firmware.

I’m not a fan of the skinny little exposure meter that is set off to the right side of the viewfinder when in Manual shooting mode. I believe this comes from the Canon 1D. When shooting a backlit subject, it’s almost impossible to see the meter. There should be an option to use the meter at the bottom of the viewfinder for Manual mode. At present, the meter at the bottom only works in the other shooting modes, such as Av, Tv, P, etc.

The red flash in the viewfinder to confirm focus lock is too dim to be seen outdoors, even on a cloudy day (that is, if you set it to come on under all lighting conditions — by default it’s set to come on only in low light). However, this is probably due to the fact that the viewfinder is inherently bright, so I guess it’s a good trade-off, because I really like the bright viewfinder. It just means I have to turn on the focus lock beep when outdoors.

***Update on a user interface issue: I’ve come to dislike having the button to enter the mode to magnify a recorded image placed on the left, while the image zoom and position controls are on the right. Because the left hand is really for camera support, it shouldn’t have to be used during routine shooting operations like viewing an image that was just snapped. All such operations are best performed with the right hand. It’s inefficient to have to reposition the left hand to activate the magnifier, and it also deviates from Canon’s previous convention for this operation.

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Things of note that I didn’t test, or that may be drawbacks (though they aren’t to me):

The 7D2 also does 1080p/60 video, but I’m not a video shooter, so I have no comment about it.

There is no WiFi on this unit. To me, it doesn’t matter, because I’m never in a situation in which I’d want to transmit files immediately. Shots I take with a DSLR aren’t meant for Instagram or Facebook, so I have no need to upload them immediately. I use my phone for that. The one possible drawback is that built in WiFi could have allowed for remote control with a smartphone, but again, there are other control options that are reasonably convenient, so I’m not bothered by it.

The LCD screen does not pull out and articulate. This is because a movable screen would have lessened the weather sealing of the camera. Again, to me this is not an issue, but this could be a big drawback for purposes of shooting video, so be aware of it. Likewise, there is no touch screen.

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Summary:

This isn’t a camera that has one or two big out-of-the-park improvements that make it revolutionary, although the new AF system comes really close. However, as a total package, it’s a pretty remarkable camera. The Mark II is currently so new that it’s not cheap, and will probably stay at MSRP for a while, but if it’s within your budget I think even at full retail you get a lot of camera for your money, especially considering that the next big overall performance gains in the Canon line will run $1k to $4k more at street prices. I give the 7D Mark II a solid recommendation.

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FIRST REVISED REVIEW:

I’m revising my original review from five stars to two. As with a number of other users, my camera is now having a problem with autofocus. The particular issue is that it cannot correctly focus a static subject farther away than about 100 feet, when using a Canon EF-S 17-55mm lens at wide angles (17 to about 30mm) and shooting in one shot mode with the center autofocusing point. About half the time it front focuses terribly, to the point that the actual plane of focus is much closer than half the distance to the subject. I’m not talking small, low contrast, low light subjects here — I’m talking city buildings (for example, the United States National Archive), shot straight on, in broad daylight, from 100 to 500 feet away.

The camera and lens (both bought new at the same time) have been back to Canon three times for repair. Each time they come back the Canon Repair Center has declared them without flaw, yet they continue to give the exact same incorrect focus results. Canon USA technical support has seen the photos I’ve taken that show this problem, and they agree there is definitely an issue, but the Canon Repair Centers have been unable to resolve it. I have also tested the body with another copy of the 17-55 lens, and the results were the same. Also, the lens focuses perfectly well in Live View, and also has no autofocus problems on my other Canon bodies.

Search the internet and you will find multiple reports of users with this and other autofocus problems. Please note I am an extremely experienced hobbyist photographer, and through my profession as a scientist I have years of experience designing and building optical systems, so this is not a matter of technique or unfamiliarity with the camera.

I’m guessing (hoping) that not all 7D Mark II cameras have this or other autofocus problems, but it seems that enough have it to make the risk of getting a faulty one uncomfortably high, in my opinion. Until more is known about these issues, I recommend against purchasing the 7D Mark II. If you do purchase it, please test it thoroughly with all of your lenses under your intended shooting conditions (i.e. shooting wildlife, landscapes, portraits, etc.) within the return period, so you can get a refund or exchange if you do get a bad one.

SECOND REVISED REVIEW:

I’m increasing my review from 2 stars to 4, because I have a workaround for the focusing issue with the Canon EF-S 17-55mm lens (see PREVIOUSLY REVISED REVIEW below, for details of the problem). With this workaround, this camera becomes really outstanding.

FURTHER TESTS (skip below to WORKAROUND if you want see the solution). I tried a brand new copy of the 17-55 mm lens on a second camera, and it displayed the same problem as before. Likewise, a Sigma 17-50 f/2.8, which is similar to the Canon, also had this issue. However, a Canon 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 did NOT have this problem at 18 mm f/3.5. The chief difference of this lens is the slightly slower aperture. At this aperture, the center focus point reverts from a dual cross to a single cross type point (this is true on the 7D2 for any lens with less than an f/2.8 max aperture). This might indicate that the problem is with the diagonal cross sensor, which is the sensor that becomes inactive at max apertures less than f/2.8. Then again, the camera works without problems with a Tokina 11-16 mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, and the cross diagonal sensor should be active for this lens. Also, I tested the 17-55 with external apertures made from tape on the rear element that reduced the max aperture to about f/4.0. With this aperture, lens still had the same problem.

So, to sum up: two separate new 17-55 lenses showed this focus problem from 17-35 mm with two separate new 7D Mark II bodies. The Sigma 17-50, which is very similar to the Canon 17-55, also had this problem. The Canon 18-55 f/3.5 shot at 18 mm did NOT have this problem, neither did a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 shot at 16 mm.

I suspect that this is a firmware problem, and I now believe it occurs in all combinations of the 7D2 and 17-55mm, but not everyone has noticed it yet. This is because it doesn’t always happen. For example, I can take shots from several hundred feet away of one building that are in focus nearly every time. But then I can shoot the building right next to it, and those shots will be out of focus nearly every time. I don’t think it’s hardware, because the problem is so specific to a narrow focal length range of the the affected lenses, and doesn’t show up with other very similar lenses (the 18-55 and the 11-16). Of course, this is just my speculation, and it could be a hardware problem after all.

WORKAROUND: Simply don’t use center single point focus in One Shot Mode from 17-35 mm on the Canon 17-55 or Sigma 17-50, and use zone focus instead (zone focus is the 3×5 array of focus points). You can try expanded center single point (these are the focus modes represented by the center single point surrounded by “smaller” focus point squares), but I found that while it was more reliable than just the center point on its own, it was not as good as the zone focus. With zone focus, I can nail focus 95-99% (and by “nail” I mean complete visual agreement with Live View) of the time on static subjects that the center point alone will miss, and that includes the troublesome landscape shots that were at the center of the whole problem to begin with. You’d think that with the zone being as big as it is, that you’d get a lot of shots where the camera has focused on something at the zone edge instead of your intended subject at the center. But amazingly, this focus mode is incredibly good at picking out the central target and optimizing focus around that when in One Shot Mode. Of course, at least some of that has to do with the generous depth of field that exists when shooting at 17-35 mm at a good distance, but that certainly doesn’t entirely account for how accurate zone focus is. The zone mode just seems really well designed and implemented, in complete contrast to the troublesome center point.

Just to be clear, the “zone” is the 3 x 5 matrix of autofocus points that is in the middle of the frame. This is not the “large zone”, that encompasses the entire block of points in the frame center. Consult the manual if you’re having trouble identifying it.

Above 35 mm, the center point works great, which is perfect for portraits where you’re framing in close and want to hit focus on a persons eyes.

In short, I can now finally use my camera productively and enjoyably. I certainly hope that this same method will work for others having this problem. Please leave a comment letting me know if you’ve had this issue, and if this workaround solved it for you.

Bottom line:

I’m only going to four stars, because there is definitely a problem with what is usually a very important focus method for landscape and interior architecture photos on the single best lens Canon makes specifically for its APS-C cameras. 17-55 mm is an ideal general focal length range for the APS-C format. Also, the fixed f/2.8 aperture allows low light shooting and maximum creative flexibility. Right now, Canon does not make another single lens that embodies these qualities, so for those of us who really want them there aren’t any alternatives that don’t involve buying two lenses. The workaround is great, but it is frustrating to have to use it instead of the single focus point mode that is the customary norm for doing this type of shooting.

I am a novice photographer and primarily take pictures of birds and scenery. I have been learning to use my camera for all it’s worth. Friends and family have admired my camera and have been envious after having just taken a few pictures with it. I have taken my camera with me (packed in a camera bag with a waterproof bag cover) canoe camping for 4 days and it did not ruin nor effect the functioning of the camera despite 3/4 days of moderate to torrential rain. I would recommend this product to anyone who wants a high quality camera that you do not plan on having to replace in the near future.

I am pleased with this camera, which is a step up from the EOS 60D which I used for the past four years. The one thing I don’t like is the placement of the exposure metre when using manual focus. I cannot see it at all, on the side, when I am shooting landscape mode. In portrait mode, it is okay, visible at the top. If automatic ISO is set, then the light metre is clearly visible at the bottom of the viewfinder, but isn’t the whole point of manual to have more control? I