Canon EOS 7D review

Until recently, camera buyers looking for an HD-capable, top-end DSLR without spending professional amounts of money had one option - the superb Nikon D300s.

The only compromise it presented was its lack of a full-frame sensor. Otherwise, with continuous shooting speeds reaching 8fps (frames per second) and a superbly rugged body, its price of about £1300 was a stone cold bargain.

Canon, however, isn't one to leave Nikon alone, and the 7D launches itself bodily into the fray. Lift it out of the box and it feels almost identical to the D300s. The body is made from magnesium alloy, and the grip and thumb pad on the back are covered in thick, textured rubber to stop you dropping it. The build quality is truly professional grade, and apart from the slightly reduced size there's little to distinguish the 7D from its bigger, full-frame brother, the 5D Mark II.

Almost all the changes are inside, and it can be hard to see why the 7D is £200 cheaper than the 5D Mark II. It's much faster - timed against a stopwatch we recorded speeds of 7.2fps, compared to the 3.9fps of the 5D Mark II. It's lightning fast to focus as well, thanks to a 19-point focus system. Every one of the 7D's focus sensors is the more accurate cross-type sensor as well. The 5D Mark II has a single cross-type sensor in the middle of the frame. In practical terms, this means that the 7D excels for shooting wildlife or sports, accurately finding and tracking subjects across the frame.

There are advantages for videographers too. Where the 5D Mark II records video at up to 1080p at 30fps, the 7D shoots at a more film-like 24fps, still at 1080p, and the results are incredible - accurate colours and unbelievably sharp. Better yet, it has a fully manual mode, in which you can set ISO, aperture and shutter speeds yourself, making it enormously flexible.

There's a mic-in socket as well. Compared to the Nikon D300s' five-minute maximum, 720p limitations there's no competition. If you want to shoot professional-quality HD video on your next DSLR, the 7D is the best possible choice. The only disadvantage awaits those with older CompactFlash cards - our previously trouble-free 4GB cards couldn't keep up with the weight of data being thrown at them. Canon claims you'll need UDMA cards with a data rate of at least 8MB/sec in order to keep up.

There are compromises elsewhere. The APS-C sensor has less than half the area of a full-frame sensor, and the 18 million, closely crowded pixels on the 7D's CMOS chip inevitably mean more noise. If you're after the ultimate in image quality, particularly when shooting at higher ISOs, cameras such as the 5D MKII or the superb Nikon D700 remain the obvious choices.

The 7D is by no means bad. Even at ISOs as high as 3200 - an unthinkable setting on an APS-C sensor a few years ago - our test images were reasonably smooth when used with fast shutter speeds. The smaller sensor also lends you an advantage for telephoto photography, multiplying the focal length of a lens by 1.6 times. Attach a 400mm lens, for instance, and it gives you 640mm of zoom instead, getting you closer to your prey.

The rest of the camera is pure luxury. The 920,000-pixel, 3in LCD is as good as the 5D Mark II's, and with dedicated buttons for commonly tweaked settings such as ISO, drive mode, flash mode and white balance, you quickly get up to speed. There's also a secondary LCD on the top-right shoulder of the camera to keep you from needing to refer to the battery-draining colour LCD for settings.