The rear of the camera is dominated by the high resolution 3' LCD screen. one touch RAW + JPEG and electronic level display. Various operations can be assigned to this button included AE (auto exposure) lock, FE (flash exposure) loc.

Second there is a new M-fn button between the control dial and the shutter release button. First the 'on/off' switch for camera power has moved from below the rear QCD is now located under the mode control dial on the left of the camera. There are two new controls on the EOS 7D. The small wheel on the side of the eyepiece, to the left of the LCD is use to set the eyepiece diopter to compensate for near and far sighted users. The rightmost button in front of the LCD is used to illuminate the LCD with an orange backlight. In Av mode it sets aperture, in Tv mode it sets shutter speed and it's used in setting various menu options. The main control dial is the wheel between the LCD and the shutter release. With any one button the main control dial sets one parameter while the rear QCD (Quick control dial) sets the other. On the right of the camera is the monochrome LCD (which can be illuminated), along with buttons for ISO selection/FEC (flash exposure compensation), AF/Drive mode setting and metering mode/white balance setting. The = Green Square mode is basically a 'point and shoot' mode where the camera sets everything for you and the creative auto (CA) mode is similar to the green square mode (in fact it defaults to it), but you can bias exposure towards larger or smaller apertures, darker or lighter images. The P program mode sets aperture and shutter speed, but leaves all other camera settings up to the user. The C1, C2 and C3 custom modes allow registration of most of the camera functions, so, for example, you can set C1 to Aperture Priority, ISO 800, Highlight Tone Priority on, Spot metering and Single Shot AF. On the left is the mode control dial with 10 settings. The top view of the EOS 7D is shown below:

The control layout of the Canon EOS 7D is similar to that of the 50D, but with a few changes and the addition of a couple of new control buttons and dial settings.

Canon 7d review digitalrev