A new toy! My primary camera body for 6+ years now has been a Canon 70D. It’s been a great camera, but…it’s time for an upgrade. I’ve been waiting (not so patiently!!!) for either a Canon 90D or 7D Mark III to be announced, as I wanted an upgrade, but wanted to stay with APS-C and the crop factor (handy when birds are your primary target). It was the 90D that was announced a few weeks ago. It started shipping Thursday, and I got mine from B&H the next day (awesome service as always, B&H).

I was anxious to give the camera a whirl this weekend, and was able to get out for a little bit this morning. As always, I had birds on my mind, but with a very strong south wind and generally non-cooperative birds, I set my sights on other quarry. Just a few photos below if you’re interested in the 90D and what it can do. All were taken with the Canon 100-400mm II lens.

Before the pics, just a few notes on my impression of the 90D. In terms of the nuts and bolts of the body, it has a very similar layout and will feel familiar to any Canon 70D shooter. While both have the same rubbery-coating in key areas of the grip, the rest of the body on the 70D is smoother and feels more “metallic”. The 90D surface has a consistency that feels like powder-coated metal is and is more matte in appearance than shiny. I appreciate the joystick on the 90D, and the fully articulating screen is great. The screen swings out, but also rotates. You can position it with the screen locked and facing back towards the shooter, as if it were a 70D. It’s nice for taking a shot and quickly reviewing (again, as you would with a 70D). When you’re done for the day, you can rotate the screen so it’s “face-down” towards the camera, protecting it when not in use.

There’s little doubt auto-focus is better on the 90D. I was frustrated quite a bit trying to shoot birds in flight with my 70D, in that it often had trouble “holding on” to a target. In my limited shooting this morning, it seemed MUCH better. There were a number of Franklin’s Gulls flying over, and I tried locking onto a bird and shooting, and it did a good job maintaining focus as I tracked the bird in flight (using AI Servo mode).

Note I also did a bit of shooting with an old 1.4x Canon teleconverter I have. I think the newer Canon teleconverters have more capability than the 15-year old teleconverter I have(?). But even with my old 1.4, the 90D will autofocus with an (effective) f/8 lens, meaning I was able to use it with my EF 100-400mm IS II USM and maintain autofocus with the center point. That’s a capability the 70D doesn’t have (although the 80D does). There’s no doubt the images when using the 1.4x were a touch softer than those without, but I’ll have to do more testing to check the capabilities with the 1.4x.

10-frames a second on the 90D…damn. I usually don’t shoot in that mode, as it just means I’d typically end up having to filter through even more shots to settle on my “keepers”, but it’s a nice option and a big upgrade over the 70D.

Of course one big improvement is resolution, where I’m going from 20 MP in the 70D to 32.5 MP in the 90D. A lot of pixels, and a lot of detail. For a guy who shoots primarily birds and often has to crop, those extra pixels are most welcome.

A few shots from this morning are below. Note I am NOT a pixel-peeper who is going to analyze every single element here, nor am I really one to give you a rigorous test. No, what follows are basic shots from the camera, shot RAW, and processed through Canon’s Digital Photo Professional with default settings to produce the JPEGs below. Each are the full-res versions (click to see full-res file). Just a few for now, including some at low ISO and one at quite high ISO. My first subject for the day…a farm cat that was hunting in a grassy field! In all the years I’ve been shooting, that this is probably the first cat photo I’ve ever taken!

CLICK ON THE 800pixel version below to load the original full-res images