Will the 7D let me refocus automatically while recording by pressing the AF button or partially pressing Shutter button, or can I only focus manually while recoding is in progress?

Yes it will I just tried it.

Yes it will AF, but you won't want to. It hunts a lot more than your typical consumer camcorder. That's going to be very irritating in a video.

Yes it will AF, but you won't want to. It hunts a lot more than your typical consumer camcorder. That's going to be very irritating in a video.

This is my experience too. Very frustrating.

I'm learning how to manual focus all of my lenses by touch right now. Not being able to rely on auto focus while shooting video is forcing me to hone those focusing skills. The problem I'm having is that each lens has it's own focusing characteristics. Some go forward, some go backwards. Some lenses the focus is the front ring. Some it's the back ring. So it does make it a challenge to focus by "feel".

But I've been using my dogs chasing the ball and forth as an exercise to get to know my lenses by touch.

I wonder if L series lenses are more consistent between the various lenses? Hmmm. Now I have to go check....

I have a Tamron 17-35 lens that has the focus ring where it belongs. The Canon 28-135 is backwards and very annoying. I think (but don't know for sure) that the L lenses are consistent. If they are, it's certainly an incentive to dump the cheaper ones and go that route, or to use third party lenses when they are good.