Canon 70D Performance

Very good to excellent performance for an enthusiast DSLR.

The Canon 70D turned in a fairly fast startup time of well under a second, however we noticed that if you press the shutter button too soon after powering up, the 70D will take a photo without focusing. (We needed to wait about half a second before pressing the shutter button for the camera to focus before taking a shot, which is included in the above number.) Shutdown is fast, too, when auto sensor cleaning is disabled. The Canon 70D's buffer clearing times were quick with a fast UHS-I card.

The Canon 70D's mode switching times were quite fast; no complaints here.

In terms of the Canon 70D's ability to determine that it's properly focused when shooting the same target multiple times using the optical viewfinder, its full autofocus shutter response was very fast. In our standard single-point AF test, shutter lag was only 0.075 second, which is pro DSLR performance! (We thought perhaps something was amiss, so we also tested this with the same Sigma 70mm f/2.8 lens we tested the 60D with, and measured the 70D's full AF shutter lag to be 0.094s versus 0.253s for its predecessor, so the bulk of the improvement is not due to the newer lens. Do keep in mind that we don't defocus between trials in this test, though, so these are really best-case autofocus shutter lag numbers.) Switching to Auto Selection AF and allowing the camera to choose the focus point increased shutter lag to 0.093 second, but that's still very fast. Enabling the built-in flash resulted in full AF lag of 0.158 second, which is still quite fast. In Continuous AF mode, shutter lag was a quick 0.121 second, though your subject may be out of focus in this mode. Shutter lag with Manual focus was very good, at 0.075 second. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure resulted in a lag time of only 0.059 second, which is very good for a DSLR.

The Canon 70D's AF lag time in Live View mode was quite a bit longer than when using the optical viewfinder, and slower than most mirrorless cameras, however it was faster than average for Live View on a DSLR. We measured 0.506 seconds using "Quick Mode" (dedicated phase-detect AF). The 70D's new FlexiZone AF mode was a bit slower than "Quick Mode" at 0.652 second, but that's still pretty good. Prefocused shutter lag in Live View mode was surprisingly fast at only 0.059 second, the same short delay we got when using the optical viewfinder.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Shot-to-shot cycle times in the Canon 70D's single-shot mode were quite good for a prosumer DSLR, at 0.28 second for large/fine JPEGs, 0.33 second for RAW mode and 0.32 second for RAW + large/fine JPEGs.

Full-resolution continuous mode speeds were very good, at about 6.7 frames-per-second, no matter the file type.

Measured buffer depths in continuous mode were good. We captured 20 large/fine JPEGs frames in a burst with no signs of slowing, 14 RAW frames or 7 RAW + large/fine JPEGs. (Note that in our cycle time testing we shoot a target consisting of a fine-grained digital noise pattern, designed to be very hard to compress. This gives us worst-case buffer capacity numbers for compressed files: You're likely to see greater buffer capacity when shooting more normal subjects.) Buffer clearing was also quite fast with a fast UHS-I card, ranging from 6 seconds for a max-length burst of JPEGs to 10 seconds after a burst of RAW frames.

The Canon 70D's flash took an average of only 1.2 seconds to recharge after a full-power discharge, which is very fast.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, the Canon 70D's download speeds were pretty fast.

Bottom line, the Canon 70D offers very good to excellent performance for a prosumer model, with fast power-up, mode switching, autofocus, shutter lag, cycle times and burst speeds. While the new Dual Pixel CMOS AF system in Live View mode isn't as fast as most mirrorless models, it's faster than most DSLRs, and really shines when it comes to smooth operation and focus tracking with an STM lens.

Battery Life
Very good battery life for a lithium-ion DSLR.

The Canon 70D uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Battery life is very good when using the optical viewfinder, but of course Live View mode draws more power reducing battery life considerably. We recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings or when using Live View mode a lot.

The table above shows the number of shots the Canon 70D is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))