Canon EOS 7D mark II Manual Book page 12

AF area selection mode
Focusing on a small or narrow area
You can pinpoint focus on exactly the location you want
When set to [Single-point Spot AF], a small rectangle is
displayed inside the manually selected AF point.
[Single-point Spot AF] mode can be used to
focus on a small area of the subject. Pinpoint
focusing on a single part of the subject is
effective for focusing on narrow areas and
subjects close to an obstruction with differing
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Spot AF
When shooting a
close-up of a face in
a portrait, it is
important to focus
on the eye closest to
you. If you use
Single-point Spot AF,
the focus will not
accidentally lock on
a point close to the
eye (such as the
eyebrow), but will
pinpoint focus on
exactly the location
you want.
This is also effective
for when you want
to focus on a small
location in the
center of the screen
Single-point Spot
AF was used for
focus on the tiny
eyes of a wild
squirrel. Single
point AF is effective
when you want to
focus on an
extremely small
point on the screen.
distances. For example, in general, eyes are
focused on for portraits, however, by using
[Single-point Spot AF] you can focus with a high
degree of accuracy on the exact location of
your choice. This is effective for shooting small
w i l d a n i m a l s . T h i s i s a l s o u s e f u l w h e n
photographing helmeted subjects in sports,
where you can avoid placing the AF point on
the edge of the helmet close to the eye,
enabling you to accurately focus on the actual
eye of the subject. As [Single-point Spot AF]
only focuses on one very small area, it is not
really suited to capturing fast moving subjects
when set to AI Servo AF and may take longer to
focus than other AF area selection modes.
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Blue color of focus point is for illustration.