Canon EOS 80D review

The first thing you’ll realise once you start shooting with the 80D is that there are loads of ways to focus it. There are four main modes – you can let the camera choose one of the 45 focus points for you, select any one of them yourself, or let it focus within either large or small zones of your choice.

It might all seem a little bewildering at first, especially if you’re not used to system cameras, but the good news is that whichever mode you select you’ll probably get great shots. That’s because the 80D has an incredibly sophisticated autofocus system: all 45 points are the ultra-sensitive cross-type and you’ll find that it locks on swiftly and accurately even in fairly dim conditions.

The various modes come into their own when shooting moving subjects, with the zone focusing in particular doing a great job of tracking a subject. I spent some time snapping pictures of my kids playing football in the garden and was pleasantly surprised at how great they were – anyone with kids usually accepts a fair few blurry shots among the crisp ones, but here they were few and far between. It’s a fairly fast camera for a mid-range DSLR, too, shooting bursts of up to 7fps with a decent buffer of 25 RAW files or 110 JPEGs.

While the average punter will just pick it up, start shooting and break out in a grin when they see the results, there’s plenty here for specialists to get their teeth into too. The AF system can be comprehensively customised, with the ability to adjust the sensitivity and speed in all manner of ways. I wouldn’t advise messing around with it unless you know what you’re doing but it’s good to know you have the option.