Having shot with the beta Canon EOS 70D for a little over a week, we thought we'd post a few notes about how it is to use in the field. We've also published a gallery of mostly daylight images for your perusal. I shot at the beach, took in an airshow and boat races, and shot in the studio, and can report that the EOS 70D seems at least as good as its predecessor, but with considerably better live view and video autofocus performance thanks to the 70D's new Dual Pixel AF system. Shooting with the 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens netted some great images at the air and boat show, as well as a few good videos.
The standout feature of the videos is that there was no detectable seeking or focus tweaking for the duration of the videos: Just solid focus. Most of the race video was at or near infinity, so there's not much to report except again that the camera didn't lose focus or seek, so we shot some additional video to show how it works. What's clear is that Canon's new Dual Pixel AF is working quite well, far better than the Hybrid AF systems used by recent Rebel-series SLRs and the EOS M, which didn't seem much different from contrast-detect systems its older SLRs.
Autofocus in live view is very fast, but how fast depends on which mode you choose. In the default Face-detection + tracking mode, pointing the camera at 'faceless' scenes can take about a second to focus on just about anything you point it at. However, as soon as it detects a face, the Canon EOS 70D will confirm focus almost instantly, about as fast as the optical viewfinder's phase-detection system.
Ultimately, we determined that the 70D's Dual Pixel AF gets faster with a smaller target area. Letting the camera determine where to focus, which it does in the Face-detection/Tracking AF, takes much longer. Pressing the Set button in FlexiZone auto-area confines the camera's attention to a smaller area, which greatly speeds things up. Switching to FlexiZone single-point AF gets even faster; seemingly as fast as traditional phase-detect. It seems clear that when the system has less data to process it makes autofocus decisions more quickly. That's generally true of most autofocus systems, whether phase or contrast-detect, so it isn't a surprise, but the length of this delay - nearly one second - in auto-area AF is worth considering when choosing which AF method is right for a given subject.
We've prepared a video to show the differences between the FlexiZone single-point phase-detect AF and Face-detect/Tracking autofocus.
| Video shot of the back of the Canon EOS 70D in live view mode. |
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When shooting videos, the Canon EOS 70D's Dual Pixel autofocus system is the most steady we've seen from an SLR. My race videos featured below seem to completely lack the usual seeking we've come to expect when using non-STM lenses with previous Canon AF systems. The first four videos below were shot with the 70-200mm F2.8L, a non-STM lens. As a reminder, STM lenses use a focus motor that's designed to work better in videos where USM lenses have typically struggled; but this wasn't the case with the 70D/70-200mm combo, thanks to the new Dual Pixel AF. Even the Rebel SL1 we reviewed last month, and which represents Canon's best effort at live view AF until now, struggled with ordinary USM lenses; the 70D seemed to have no such trouble.
| 1920 x 1080, 30p IPB - Testing the jet engine of a speed boat, shot with 70D in servo AF mode using 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens. 84.1MB. Click here to download original file. |
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Note that the camera does not appear to 'seek' for focus, instead keeping focus on the foreground.
| 1920 x 1080, 30p IPB - Testing another engine as the race progresses in the background (focus stays on near subject), shot with 70D in servo AF mode using 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens. 42.7MB. Click here to download original file. |
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Again, the camera stays on our subject in the above video.
| 1920 x 1080, 30p IPB - Tracking a subject, shot with 70D in servo AF mode using 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens. 87.9MB. Click here to download original file. |
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Though we're in Servo AF mode with both the above and below videos, it's unclear whether the camera is making many focus changes. The story is that it's not losing focus dramatically, if at all.
| 1920 x 1080, 30p IPB - Tracking an even faster subject, shot with 70D in servo AF mode using 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens. 246.2MB. Click here to download original file. |
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| 1920 x 1080, 30p IPB - Subject switching video: With autofocus confined to the center point, the camera quickly notices an out-of-focus condition and makes the change (using the 18-135mm kit lens). 48.1MB. Click here to download original file. |
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Shooting in bright daylight, the 70D most often focuses very quickly, as seen in the above video. In four tries at different focal lengths using the 18-135mm STM zoom, the camera only had trouble when it was set at focal lengths approaching 135mm. In general, the 18-135mm lens seemed to start seeking when the minimum aperture hit F5.6. This video (above) was shot at about 85mm.
Most of my studio shooting was in the usual SLR mode, using conventional (reflex) phase-detect autofocus through the optical viewfinder. Overall, shots are good and focused in the studio as well as outdoors, and performance was quite fast. Part of the reason for this exercise, as well as the low light shots, was to confirm that the image quality is still up to snuff, despite the radical redesign of the sensor to support Dual Pixel AF. We think our shots show the Canon EOS 70D beta unit performs quite well, with the detail we'd expect from a 20.2MP camera.
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| JPEG - F4.5, 1/1250 sec, ISO 100, 200mm w/70-200mm F2.8L IS lens | 100% crop |
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| Raw processed via ACR 8.2 (beta) with sharpening set to: Amount 77, Radius 0.6, Detail 12, Masking 0 | 100% crop |
JPEGs were a little soft straight out of the camera, as we're used to seeing from Canon's semi-pro and pro cameras. We were able to open the files in ACR 8.2 (beta) and retrieve a little more detail from the shots above and below.
In bright daylight, the Canon EOS 70D's traditional phase-detect autofocus had no trouble with this victorious racer below. Detail was still a bit soft, so we opened it in ACR 8.2 and managed to find a bit more detail through sharpening.
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| JPEG - F6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO 100, 148mm w/70-200mm F2.8L IS lens | 100% crop |
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| Raw processed via ACR 8.2 (beta) with sharpening set to: Amount 64, Radius 0.6, Detail 15, Masking 0 | 100% crop |
Raw files also revealed a little more shadow detail, while JPEGs show slight sharpening halos and more pumped color, which is unsurprising on both counts.
Image quality in low light is about what we expect from Canon sensors. ISO 25,600 produces images that are usable with good detail, considering. The first set of shots below were made on a tripod to minimize motion blur. The second set was shot handheld image stabilization active. The 70D's ISO 25,600 is softer, but allowed a shutter speed of 1/100 at F6.3.
Again, we shot these primarily to see whether making a 20MP sensor with 40M photosites would cause noticeable degradation in image quality, in this case in low light. When the final camera ships, we might arrange a comparison or two with a comparable Canon camera to better illustrate whether there's a noticeable change. In the meantime, check the High ISO JPEG comparison page to see how the camera does with our Studio Test Scene.
Overall, the Canon EOS 70D has more of what you want in an intermediate SLR without over-reaching. It's true that most of what's improved about the 70D has more to do with live view and movie modes, which at first blush doesn't make it a compelling upgrade for still photographers. The advantage becomes more clear when you remember the 70D's articulated LCD, which is made more useful by live-view phase-detect autofocus that's essentially as fast and accurate as conventional, optical-viewfinder phase-detect AF. That won't be significant to those who are accustomed to always bringing an SLR to their eye, but it will matter to anyone raised in the generation used to framing their world on an electronic display.
For 60D owners, there's also the advantage of a faster frame rate, up from 5.3 to 7 fps, an improvement that came in handy when shooting the boats.
As has often happened in the 26 year history of EOS cameras, sometimes lesser models appear to leapfrog other cameras in the line with superior technology than more expensive models. That's certainly happened here with the 70D's advanced sensor-based Dual Pixel autofocus. However, it's quite likely the Canon EOS 70D's Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology will appear in more DSLR models soon. The question remains whether the 70D leaves room for a 7D replacement, with so many enthusiasts and pros gravitating to full-frame cameras, but this innovation certainly breathes new life into a once-popular APS-C camera line that looked like it might become irrelevant after the Rebel-like Canon 60D. What's sure is that live view and video phase-detect autofocus has a new champion in Canon's new Dual Pixel AF. We'll do more testing when we get a final version of the camera.
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with Dual Pixel CMOS AF (Body Only) | $1,199.00 |
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with Dual Pixel CMOS AF and EF-S 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit | Too low to display |
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with Dual Pixel CMOS AF (Body Only) | $1,199.00 |
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with Dual Pixel CMOS AF and EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit | $1,349.00 |
Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II Telephoto Zoom Lens (Import) for Canon EOS 7D, 60D, 70D, Rebel SL1, T1i, T2i, T3, T3i, T4i, T5i, XS, XSi, XT, & XTi Digital SLR Cameras + 6pc Bundle Accessory Kit | $177.77 |
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with Dual Pixel CMOS AF (Body Only) 32GB Pro Kit - Includes camera, 32GB Secure Digital SD Memory Card, Compact Deluxe Gadget Bag - DC74m 3pc. Lens Cleaning Kit | $1,199.00 |
Canon EOS 60D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD (Body Only) | $699.00 |
Canon EOS 70D Digital SLR Camera & EF-S 18-135mm IS STM Lens with 32GB Card + Battery + Case + Tripod + Filter + Flash + Tele/Wide Lenses + Kit | $1,549.95 |
Canon EOS 60D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD and 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS UD Standard Zoom Lens | Too low to display |
Canon EOS 7D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-Inch LCD (Body Only) | $1,339.00 |
Canon EOS 70D 20.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera and EF-S 18-55mm 64GB Bundle - Includes camera, 64GB Memory Card, Telephoto Lens, 2 58 mm Filter Kits, 2 Batteries, Battery Charger, Gadget Bag, Card Reader, Mini Tripod, Screen Protectors, & Lens Cleaning Kit | $1,497.00 |
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