After a long 5 years, the newly announced Canon EOS 7D Mark II replaces the venerable Canon EOS 7D. Considered the semi professional crop sensor workhorse, the original Canon 7D has been in a crowded market place since 2009. Canon finally stepped up the high performance crop sensor segment with the 20 megapixel Dual Digic 6 Canon EOS 7D Mark II with a host of new photo and video features for a MSRP of $1,799 USD.
The major highlights for photographers are AF points and the fast action frames per second. No more 7D 19 AF points, the 7D Mark II has 65 AF points to the likes of sports photographers paired with a fast 10 fps like the Canon 1D Mark IV. All this speed is supported by Dual DIGIC 6 processors to keep up with the faster buffer rate.
Okay, now for the good stuff for all those HD DSLR video fanatics. Headphone jack, uncompressed HDMI out and Dual Pixel CMOS AF during video recording like the Canon EOS 70D briefly touches the amazing video specifications. Full HD video is now with a 60fps frame rate for slow motion applications and with the now commonplace ALL-I and IPB compression rates. I almost forgot, Time Code as well.
Let me mention again, HEADPHONE jack for audio monitoring. Hurray! (Like the more expensive Canon 5D Mark III)
Now for the not so good stuff of the Canon EOS 7D Mark II. No swivel touchscreen like the Canon EOS 70D as well as no built in Wi-Fi for remote monitoring and uploading with Canon EOS Remote App. IMHO, quite a strange product marketing move for Canon. The HD DSLR marketplace is very crowded with shrinking sales in a saturated environment nowadays. We will have to wait until a November 2014 product release date to get a hands on review of this long awaited Canon EOS 7D replacement.
In the meantime, the impatient will be appeased by new affordable lenses recently announced as well. The new EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens for $149 will satisfy the compact form factor crowd. We have already seen the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens for full frame but this shorter focal length will be a quick seller at this price point.
The newly announced Canon EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM kit lens for $599 USD will gladly replace the aging Canon EF 28-135mm IS kit lens seen with the Canon 5D Mark II and the original Canon EOS 7D. The only kit lens that has impressed me is the current Canon EF-S 18-135mm IS STM for its price point and lens quality.
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