Canon 80D Performance

Good to excellent performance for a prosumer DSLR.

Powering on and taking a shot was fast, at about 0.5 second. Switching from Play to Record mode and taking a shot was even faster, at only about 0.1 second. Excellent performance here.

In terms of the Canon 80D'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. We measured 0.076 second for full AF lag using single point (center) AF, about the same as the 70D. Enabling the flash increased full AF lag significantly though, to 0.265 second, thanks to pre-flash metering.

Shutter lag with manual focus was faster at 0.061 second, a little faster than the 70D's 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 0.057 second, which is quite good for a DSLR and also a little faster than the 70D tested (0.059s).

The Canon 80D's prefocused shutter lag in Live View mode was almost identical to using the optical viewfinder: a very fast 0.060 second. (We no longer test full AF shutter lag in Live View mode, as it is usually very lens dependent.)

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.

Single-shot cycle times were very fast, at just over a third of a second for both JPEGs and RAW+JPEG files. (Note that we no longer test single-shot mode with just RAW files, as the results are usually somewhere in between.)

Full-resolution continuous mode speeds were good, at between 6.7 and 6.8 frames-per-second depending on the file type, which is very similar to the 70D's burst speed despite the larger files, and just a little short of Canon's 7.0 fps spec.

Buffer depth for best quality JPEGs was very good at 53 frames, and note that we use a difficult to compress target for this test for worst-case results, so typical buffer depths would likely be even higher. When shooting RAW files, buffer depths were of course lower than with just JPEGs but still quite good, at 24 frames for RAW files, and 19 frames for RAW+JPEG files, compared to only 14 RAW and 7 RAW+JPEG frames for the 70D.

Buffer clearing times were quite good considering buffer depths, ranging from only 4 seconds after a max-length burst of best quality JPEGs, to 13 seconds after a burst of RAW+JPEG frames with a fast UHS-I card. The camera allows you make setting changes and shoot additional shots while the buffer is clearing, but you can't view just-shot images while the buffer is clearing.

The Canon 80D's built-in flash took an average of 2.8 seconds to recharge after a full-power discharge, which is good.

Bottom line, the Canon 80D offers good to excellent performance for a prosumer DSLR, providing fast power-up & mode switching, fast AF speeds, low shutter lag, fast cycle times, and decent burst speeds with generous buffer depths.

Battery Life
Very good battery life when using the optical viewfinder.

The Canon 80D uses a custom LP-E6N rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a dedicated battery charger. Battery life is quite good using the optical viewfinder, rated at 960 shots with 50% using flash, 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, or consider the optional BG-E14 battery grip which accepts two LP-E6N battery packs or 6 AA/LR6 batteries.

The table above shows the number of shots the Canon 80D 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))