My 90D mini first Review

I had my first chance to take the 90D out in the field today. I went up to Madera Canyon and the Santa Rita Lodge where they feed birds. My primary objective was to be sure my primary lenses all behaved properly. I wanted to see the IQ at mid to high range ISOs. I also wanted to check my hand held macro capability and the 90D to do focus stacking of macros.

My conclusions -

1. I am very happy with the overall performance of the 90D. It is a step up from my 80D and justified its purchase. I got used to the newer feel rather quickly.

2. All the lenses I checked worked just fine: EF 100-400 mm v1, EF 70-200 f/2.8, EF 24-70 2.8, EF 100mm f/2.8 macro, and my walk about Tamron 16-300 mm.

3. IQ was very good for everything I shot today. I was pleasantly surprised at the ISO 5000 shots I took. I did not go higher today.

4. My impression is that the noise characteristics are cleaner, meaning more shot noise component and less electronic, over the ISO range 100-5000. Both Lightroom and Noiseware handled them very well, and better than for the 80D ( and 60 D).  I need to do some more systematic testing of this impression.

5. The focus bracketing addition could be very nice. I used it a little bit for regular shots, and tried a few stacked macros. The regular shots worked well, the macros not so much. I have a lot of learning to do on how to select the two focus parameters for macros.

I was not happy that I cannot (as best I can first figure out so far) assign a custom shooting mode to focus bracketing. Back to the manual later.

6. In just a couple of hours I shot about 1000 photos. The 10 frames a sec really works well. I have grown to like the new focus/shoot button.

7. I need to characterize the various focus/exposure modes one of these days.

8. The joy stick control is ok. It does make it a bit easier to move the focus point, and probably faster, though I was pretty quick with the 80D wheel.

Some shots follow:

100-400 mm at 400 mm and ISO 640. a bit of LR noise reduction. no crop

100-400mm at 400mm  ISO 4000; no crop; some LR noise reduction.

70-200 @120mm, f/4, ISO 320, some cropping an minimal LR noise reduction.

These hummers were too close and active for accurate tracking at a full 200 mm; though on a non-test day I would have used the 100-400 for closer shots.

Here is a handheld focus stack of 17 shots of some berries where I adjusted the focus by hand during a rapid burst.  100mm macro, f/20, ISO 3200 ; some cropping, some LR noise reduction prior to stacking.

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

Lovely shot! Ignore the troll.

Dave C.

Dave Clyburn wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

Lovely shot! Ignore the troll.

Dave C.

The photo is not in focus too, so not so lovely, but this can always happen ...

Dave C. , why is an ever so slightly negative comment a troll???
Don't be so brutal, attacking, rude and impolite, please ... The world will be so much nicer, and this forum too ...

Jozef.

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

It doesn't look noisy to me, but it (and the others) look over-sharpened and noise-reduced.

Maybe get into the menu and play around with the picture settings, esp sharpness and noise reduction.

I agree, shoot raw.

Lena36 wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

It doesn't look noisy to me, but it (and the others) look over-sharpened and noise-reduced.

Maybe get into the menu and play around with the picture settings, esp sharpness and noise reduction.

I agree, shoot raw.

Oversharpened and noise reduced, could be also ...
Take a look at this crop I made:

I think this is noise.

I think we know more when Dpreview does the IQ of the new sensor in the professional setup.

Jozef

Jozef M wrote:

Lena36 wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

It doesn't look noisy to me, but it (and the others) look over-sharpened and noise-reduced.

Maybe get into the menu and play around with the picture settings, esp sharpness and noise reduction.

I agree, shoot raw.

Oversharpened and noise reduced, could be also ...
Take a look at this crop I made:

I think this is noise.

I think we know more when Dpreview does the IQ of the new sensor in the professional setup.

Jozef

It looks more like sharpening artifacts being noise-reduced to me.

But yeah...like any tool, it must be adjusted for use.

I don't know what settings the 90D comes with, but before I shoot anything tomorrow when the camera arrives, I'll be going through that menu with a fine-toothed comb. 

You can really see the sharpening artifacts in the second picture, the Hummingbird with wings out-stretched. Look along its body-lines. Again, I don't see noise as the problem here (even at 4000iso), but rather over-sharpening.

Lena36 wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Lena36 wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

It doesn't look noisy to me, but it (and the others) look over-sharpened and noise-reduced.

Maybe get into the menu and play around with the picture settings, esp sharpness and noise reduction.

I agree, shoot raw.

Oversharpened and noise reduced, could be also ...
Take a look at this crop I made:

I think this is noise.

I think we know more when Dpreview does the IQ of the new sensor in the professional setup.

Jozef

It looks more like sharpening artifacts being noise-reduced to me.

But yeah...like any tool, it must be adjusted for use.

I don't know what settings the 90D comes with, but before I shoot anything tomorrow when the camera arrives, I'll be going through that menu with a fine-toothed comb.

You have the 90D tomorrow, this is great! Maybe you could post some test photos with low and high isos in full resolution on the forum?

That will be interesting.

Jozef.

Jozef M wrote:

Lena36 wrote:

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

It doesn't look noisy to me, but it (and the others) look over-sharpened and noise-reduced.

Maybe get into the menu and play around with the picture settings, esp sharpness and noise reduction.

I agree, shoot raw.

Oversharpened and noise reduced, could be also ...
Take a look at this crop I made:

I think this is noise.

I think we know more when Dpreview does the IQ of the new sensor in the professional setup.

Jozef

So if I ever need a highly detailed picture of a flying humminingbird's armpit you are saying this may not be the camera to take it with??

Very nice picture and I would be pleased to have it in my collection

You have the 90D tomorrow, this is great! Maybe you could post some test photos with low and high isos in full resolution on the forum?

That will be interesting.

Jozef.

I will get it tomorrow, but probably not until late in the day, given our UPS usual delivery.

I have a plan to take it birding on Wednesday, and will give the BIF scenario a definite test.  Will be in the woodlands, so will also have a chance to try out the capabilities of the iso.

It's warbler migration season where I am, so should get some good opportunities to test its overall birding capabilities.

Great shots and write-up! Did you fill the buffer at all during your shoot? If so, how does it compare to that on the 80D?

I was also confused about the love for the joystick over the wheel on the 80d. Until I figured out you don’t need to press the af point button first when using the joy stick. You can move the point around with the joy stick while tracking and focusing. That made a big difference to me

Jozef M wrote:

Thanks for the review.

The first photo at iso 640 is very noisy, I think it is the sensor.
Maybe with a good raw converter, you get better results.

Jozef.

I have been shooting my 90D since Friday and am very impressed with the high ISO performance.

The first step to getting good results is to go to Adobe products such as Lightroom and ACR.  Hit uninstall.  Next download the latest version of Canon's DPP software.

If you shoot jpegs, the camera will give excellent results at high ISO.  The results I have gotten look impressive at ISO 3200, 6400, and 12800.  ISO 25600 is pushing it and probably only useful for family type snapshots where content is more important than quality.

The camera provides low, standard, and high options for noise reduction.  I have only tried the standard setting.

If you want great results for the raw files, use DPP!!!!!!  It will automatically adjust the sliders for processing of each image.  I don't know if it adjust based on assessment of the noise or merely based on ISO.  Regardless it works and will give a very clean image without significant loss of details.

Another reason to use DPP is the DLO and diffraction correction software.  I have no idea how it works to compensate for the loss of diffraction, but the results are impressive.  I made a number of shots at f/20 - f/32 and was very impressed.  In DPP you can turn the correction off and on and see major differences.  You do need to download the specific lens information in order to use this function.  DLO includes the diffraction correction and also makes additional lens specific adjustments.

It is time to dump the Adobe software rather than blame the camera for the poor Adobe results.

I have no idea what lab testing and analytics are going to say about the high ISO performance of the 90D sensor.  Maybe it is the software that is important.  I don't care.  I just like the results.

jrkliny wrote:

The camera provides low, standard, and high options for noise reduction. I have only tried the standard setting.

If you want great results for the raw files, use DPP!!!!!! It will automatically adjust the sliders for processing of each image. I don't know if it adjust based on assessment of the noise or merely based on ISO. Regardless it works and will give a very clean image without significant loss of details.

I believe it's the camera that computes the NR settings, it has to do that anyway in order to render JPEGs. It appends the settings to RAWs and DPP just reads and uses them. LR and other non-Canon RAW converters ignore the metadata.

Another reason to use DPP is the DLO and diffraction correction software. I have no idea how it works to compensate for the loss of diffraction, but the results are impressive

Very likely it does deconvolution with a kernel based on an approximation of each lense's point spread function. A very common technique in scientific imaging, whether in microscopy or astronomy.

All these shots were shot in RAW only.  I shot for about 2 hours, most in high speed burst mode, producing about 1000 shots. I filled the buffer a few times, and it certainly felt like it held more than the 80D.

The editing was fairly quick, an hour or so, in LR, where I picked out a few good looking shots for first edit. I generally followed what worked ok with the 80D

Are some of the shots over sharpened?  Possibly. These are not for print

I am not a pixel peeper like some here, I was just trying to get a good first feel of the camera.  I am still happy.

Sharlin wrote:

Very likely it does deconvolution with a kernel based on an approximation of each lense's point spread function. A very common technique in scientific imaging, whether in microscopy or astronomy.

If this is true and Canon is using techniques long used in the scientific research sector to reduce or eliminate diffraction, then this is a huge step forward and it can mean a lot for photography since many of us are very limited in the range of apertures that we can use on our lenses if we want optimal image quality, so we usually can’t go below f8 even when many of our lenses can stop down at least a couple more stops than that.

Alex Zeee wrote:

Great shots and write-up! Did you fill the buffer at all during your shoot? If so, how does it compare to that on the 80D?

I probably only filled the buffer when I was trying the macro shots for focus stacking.

My sense was that I got more shots with the 90D than the 80D before the capture rate slowed down. But I only shot a few of these to see how it worked.

I wasn't tracking these birds, so my number of shots at any one time was probably no more than a dozen.

Landscapeforfun wrote:

I was also confused about the love for the joystick over the wheel on the 80d. Until I figured out you don’t need to press the af point button first when using the joy stick. You can move the point around with the joy stick while tracking and focusing. That made a big difference to me

I certainly need to play with it more. For the birds, I was not composing, just tracking so I stayed centered all the time.

I have only played with the joystick a few times. It seemed ok, but nothing special. But all that says is that I need to keep playing.