When I first started off in video, my biggest concern was the ability to focus the camera. There were a lot of camcorders out there that had autofocus, but with camcorders, you lose that cinematic look and the low light ability that you get with DSLRs. Then, I heard about the Canon 70D. It was a DSLR, but with it’s new technology, it was capable of having smooth, accurate autofocus. I’ve had this camera for about two years now and used it on several videos, so today I’m here with my Canon 70D review for video.
Canon 70D Review for Video: Autofocus
Autofocus is the main reason I bought the camera, so let’s talk about how well the Canon 70D autofocuses for video. Overall, it’s pretty good. You can aim the camera at a scene and it will usually lock focus pretty quickly. When someone is moving, like a bride coming down the aisle, it adjusts smoothly. It doesn’t have that jumpy back and forth autofocus like so many other DSLRs.
The only issue I’ve had with the autofocus is that it will sometimes focus on the wrong subject. Because the autofocus is continually adjusting, it will sometimes jump to the wrong subject and then jump back to the right one. To fix this, you can tap on the touch screen and it will focus on that point. It should stay locked on that subject and follow it, but it does make mistakes sometimes.
Autofocus on most cameras makes a lot of noise when the lens focuses, which can be picked up on the video. Canon has a line of lenses that are made for video and are silent. I own two of the lenses and they really are silent on the video.
Canon 70D Review for Video: Image Quality
Video has to be in focus for it to work, but if the quality of the video is low, then the focus doesn’t even matter. Before I bought the Canon 70D, I was using a Sony A57 for the autofocus as well. Unfortunately, the image quality was pretty horrible, and that’s why I started looking for another option.
The image quality of the Canon 70D can be pretty good in most situations. When shooting outside with plenty of light, the image quality is quite nice. I’ve not been able to figure out how to shoot in a flat profile with the camera, so the image tends to have high contrast. The real problem comes when there isn’t much light. As the ISO goes up, the quality diminishes pretty quickly. Anything above 1600 starts to fall apart. You can counter this with a faster lens, but it still stinks that it doesn’t do better.
Canon 70D Review for Video: Conclusion
I like this camera, I really do. We use it as our main shot in the videos because it’s the easiest to use with a decent amount of quality. I just wish the image quality was a bit better. Hopefully in the future, there will be a release of Magic Lantern for the 70D because then that would give a flat profile to help with editing. If anything changes, I’ll update this Canon 70D Review for Video to show how things improved.
