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FREE SOFTWARE WORTH £28! Issue 158 • Nov 2019
PHOTOLEMUR 3 FOR MAC & PC
CANON EOS 90D
THE BEST-EVER
CANON APS-C DSLR We test Canon’s new all-round enthusiast EOS champion!
THE NEED FOR SPEED
Get creative with your motorsports photos
PRO TIPS
IMPROVE YOUR EXPOSURES Master aperture, shutter speed and ISO for perfect pictures
If there is no real meaningful colour in the room, or in the costume, then I’ll turn the shot black and white Simon Annand – theatre portrait photographer
NEW IN-DEPTH TESTS
STREET LENSES Fast-and-wide prime lenses for instant candid images
theApprentice
canon pro Name:
drew gibson Camera:
Canon EOS-1D X Mk II Drew, 35, is a London-based professional motorsports photographer with an eye for creative imagery. He travels the globe to shoot everything from World Endurance Championships to Formula E. His clients include car manufacturers, like Bentley, Aston Martin, and Nio, as well as Top Gear, Goodwood Revival and several race teams. To check out Drew’s amazing portfolio, go to www.drew-gibson.co.uk.
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apprentice Name:
uwe deffner Camera:
Canon EOS-1D X Mk II Uwe is a retired IT consultant, originally from Münster, Germany, who moved to the UK over 25 years ago. His first Canon was a Canon FTb film camera, and his first DSLR was the EOS 450D, but he soon progressed to a EOS 5D Mark III, and more recently, a pro-level EOS-1D X Mark II. He asked for our help to improve his motorsport action photos, and who better to help him than Drew Gibson? www.digitalcameraworld.com
SHOOT WITH A PRO
the need for speed
Rev up your motorsports photography as Canon pro Drew Gibson teaches our Apprentice on a track day at Brands Hatch The Canon Magazine
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theApprentice
TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT
Our Apprentice Uwe starts up his engine with Canon pro Drew’s camera tips
HOT SHOT #1
Manual control for full control over the aperture, shutter speed and ISO you need to use Manual mode,” says Drew. “If you’re using Shutter Priority mode and shooting in and out of shade, the lighting will often trick your camera into exposing either too brightly or too dark. Use Manual mode and you can set the exposure to suit the cars in specific parts of the track.”
back-button af By isolating the AF to the back button (in your menu) it stops your camera focusing on the wrong area or car. Pre-focus on the track – good drivers will hit the same lines each time they race past again and again.
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compose with caution drew explained to Uwe how easy it is to focus so much on capturing a successful panning shot, that you forget about the background. Messy backdrops with bright red bins or men in fluorescent security jackets will distract from a perfectly panned car, so keep an eye out for potential distractions, and reposition yourself if necessary to get a better, cleaner shot.
www.digitalcameraworld.com
SHOOT WITH A PRO
uwe’s comment We started off with a fast 1/1000 sec shutter speed and I was using a telephoto zoom at 400mm. Drew showed me how me to shoot down and through the edge of some big trees for a better composition. By shooting at f/5.6, the tree’s leaves are blurred, drawing the eye to the car beyond. Drew also tried to get me to pan with a slow shutter speed (see inset), but it proved that it takes years of experience to get a sharp pan shot through trees while a car speeds down the Paddock Hill bend!
Lens
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
Exposure
1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO200
slower with panning
HOT SHOT #2
Lens
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Exposure
1/40 sec, f/22, ISO100
The Canon Magazine
top gear #1
Polarizing lens filters “To avoid the harsh sunlight causing bright highlights on shiny paintwork on race cars, I use polarizers for 90 per cent of my shots,” explains Drew. “I have circular polarizing filters for all my lenses and they’re great for reducing unwanted, distracting reflections and bringing out the colours in race cars and backdrops.” They can also boost contrast and make blue skies look more dramatic, depending which way you twist the filter.
uwe’s comment Panning is a technique I’ve been keen to master for a while, and after setting up back button focusing and ‘pre-focusing’ on the track, I saw a real improvement in my shots. Using a slow 1/40 sec shutter speed has blurred the background nicely to emphasize the speed. Drew also told me to experiment with my compositions and try placing the car on the left for a more dynamic shot.
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exposurephototips
ultimate guide to
Exposure Understand how your Canon camera settings work so you can capture better exposure every time
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hotography is the process of capturing how light interacts with the scene in front of you and derives from the Greek words ‘photos’ and ‘graphe’, meaning to draw with light. How you capture light through the lens of your DSLR or mirrorless camera is a core part of any photo, and you’ll likely be familiar with the terms under- and overexposure which mean there is too little or too much light in your frame. Canon’s EOS cameras use advanced metering modes to help you get consistently balanced
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exposures, though like all art it is subjective and you may want to take total control of your exposure, to get it looking spot on. There are many factors at play that can affect your exposure, such as your aperture, shutter speed and also the ISO value which is a bit like the gain dial on a guitar amplifier – boosting the camera’s sensitivity to light, but making it more distorted at the same time. Over the page we’ll start by diving into these exposure parameters and showing you how they’re all interlinked so you can get the perfect exposure with every shot.
www.digitalcameraworld.com
Canon camera skills
top tips for getting the perfect exposure
The Canon Magazine
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rtu Ape
L Mo arge: re e f/4 xpo sur e
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Less sensitive: Less exposure
ISO
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exposurephototips
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More sensitive: More exposure George W Johnson
the exposure triangle Learn how your exposure parameters are all interlinked with each other to control the brightness of your images
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here are three main variables at work when taking an image on your Canon EOS digital camera, these are: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The aperture is a series of blades inside your lens that make up a diaphragm which can be set to let in more or less light. Doing so also directly affects your depth of field. Shoot at wide apertures such as f/2.8 and you’ll flood the sensor with light, but also have a very shallow depth of field with a small area of your frame in focus. But if you shoot at a narrower aperture of, say f/22, the light will be restricted to a mere sliver, and you’ll also have a much larger, more forgiving zone of sharp focus to work with, so this is a trade-off you’ll need to consider carefully. You also have to contend with the shutter speed – the length of time that you want to expose the sensor to light for. If shooting in
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Aperture Priority (Av) or Shutter Priority (Tv) modes when you adjust one of these parameters, the camera will automatically work out the other value for you to give you a correct exposure. Having a short shutter speed will make it easier to freeze action, while extending it will give you the opportunity to blur moving subjects like water as it moves through the scene. Lastly, we have the ISO value to think about which determines how sensitive the sensor is to light. ISO100 is usually the lowest available value. Your least sensitive setting will produce the best image quality in your pictures. Increasing the ISO will make it more sensitive to light which is useful in low-light or when you need faster shutter speeds, but it will also degrade your image quality, with less definition and increasing the amount of noise in your pictures, so you need the right balance.
Get more with Raw Raw isn’t an acronym, it literally means the raw data coming from the camera’s sensor. Raw files are larger than JPEGs, but this is a small price to pay for the extra exposure information they possess, and they make it possible to effectively change the exposure of your shot back at your computer and adjust the white balance – two things that are very tricky to do with smaller, compressed JPEG files. So be sure to set your Canon EOS to its Raw shooting mode. www.digitalcameraworld.com
canon skills
f/4
f/5.6
f/8
balancing act
f/11
A great exposure is the result of balancing your aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings
Understanding the histogram graph The histogram is a graph that shows you the range of tones in your scene, from black on the left, to white on the right, and all of the midtones in between. It can be a handy visual cue to see if your tones are bunched up towards the left or right, generally meaning the shot is under- or overexposed, or evenly spread across it for a well-balanced shot. It’s generally best to underexpose a little to preserve highlight details like clouds in the sky or skin tones.
f/16
f/22
Increasing the aperture value also widens your zone of sharp focus, so it’s possible to get more of your picture in focus
When reviewing images on your Canon EOS camera LCD screen, press the Info button to bring up the histogram
Capture motion by slowing down your shutter speed Use a fast shutter speed to freeze your subject or slow it down to inject motion blur 1/1000 sec
The Canon Magazine
1/500 sec
1/125 sec
1/60 sec
1/30 sec
1/15 sec
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THE MISSION Shoot a portrait and blend it with toy blocks for a fun composite Time needed Two hours Skill level Intermediate Kit needed • Whiteboard • Toy blocks • Tripod • Photoshop CC or Elements • Flash kit (or window light)
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New kid on the block James Paterson gets creative with portraits and toy blocks and shows how to craft a cheeky composite with some simple Photoshop skills
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he best composites are often those that are photographed specifically with the final result in mind. This means that rather than attempting to merge a disparate array of unconnected images, we can instead combine a set of carefully composed, consistent frames that look like they belong together. What’s more, the work done in-camera makes the Photoshop technique much easier and simpler than you might think.
We’ll explain how it works here, with careful lighting and positioning of the different elements that make up our playful block face composite. After photographing the portrait and a pile of toy blocks separately, the images are merged into a seamless whole using a quick and easy Photoshop technique. The blocks are desaturated and overlaid on top of the face then blended using the Multiply layer blend mode. Once done, all that’s left to do is fine-tune which parts of the blocks are visible or hidden by painting a layer mask.
The process also makes it easy to take pieces from different photos and bring them together. Here I used three separate images of toy blocks – for the face, the forehead and the neck – then blended the edges using masks. This is a key Photoshop skill that can be utilized for all kinds of image editing tasks, from surreal montages, to tonal enhancements. Over the next few pages we’ll look at both the shooting techniques and Photoshop skills required to make conceptual portraits like this. You’ll find a full walkthrough in the accompanying video. www.digitalcameraworld.com
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VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_158_1
CLEVER COMPOSITE PROJECT PROJECT 1
THE SET UP BLOCK PARTY Get set up for a playful composite with simple lighting and camera skills 01 PLAIN BACKDROP
A plain backdrop is helpful here. Not only does it give our final image a clean feel, it also makes it easier to combine pieces from images into a composite once we begin working on our shots in Photoshop. We used a piece of whiteboard.
02 TRIPOD
We set up a tripod above the whiteboard, with the camera angled down on the blocks. The tripod helps keep a consistent angle and height. This means the direction of light stays the same, ensuring the separate frames fit together naturally later.
03 SUBJECT
Our little chap here makes for a playful subject and his lack of hair means it’s easier to blend the head with the toy blocks later. We captured a range of expressions and poses of the head and body. Other subjects could work well – even animals!
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04 LIGHTING KIT
We used two studio flashes to light our scene. One of the heads is linked to the camera with a sync cable, while the other is set to optical slave so that it fires at the same time. If studio lighting isn’t an option then window light can be as effective. The Canon Magazine
05 SOFTBOX
A large softbox attached to the key light here gives us directional light from the left of the camera. Akin to a large window, a softbox is ideal for portraits as it gently falls off across the face and offers softedged shadows.
06 WOODEN BLOCKS
Wooden blocks form the base for our effect. We shoot the blocks and the baby separately in roughly the same position on the board, then bring everything together in post. An array of different colours, shapes and sizes gives us plenty of choice.
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VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_158_2
IDEO VIEW THE V
PROJECT 2
THE MISSION Learn how to manage depth of field in your shots Time needed One hour Skill level Intermediate Kit needed • A ‘fast’ lens (optional)
Mastering depth of field Peter Travers shows you how to tame depth of field for creative effect
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ne of the joys of using a Canon DSLR is the ability to use different lenses, such as lenses with a wide maximum aperture (eg f/2.8) to really blur backgrounds behind subjects, so they stand out in shot. This is called using a shallow depth of field (DoF). The depth of field is a measure of the physical distance between the closest and furthest points in a scene that will be rendered sharply in an image. With a larger depth of
field, more of the scene will look sharp, from front to back. While a shallower DoF will mean a smaller area in the scene will be sharp, with elements before and after your focal point blurred. The DoF is governed by three factors: the aperture setting, the focal length of the lens, and the focus distance. Narrower apertures (eg f/22) stretch the DoF, whereas wide apertures (eg f/4) shrink the DoF. A shorter focal length will result in a larger DoF. Wide-angle lenses therefore tend to give a
larger DoF, ideal therefore for landscapes; whereas telephoto lenses have the opposite effect, making long lenses better for sports, portraits or wildlife for less DoF to blur backgrounds. And finally, the DoF also decreases at closer focusing distances, but if you focus further into a scene, DoF will increase (see the Barcelona cityscape, right). So, the aperture, focal length and focal point affects the DoF, let’s look at how you control them on your DSLR and lenses…
STEP BY STEP HOW TO CONTROL DEPTH OF FIELD Camera and lens settings plus three factors that dictate what’s sharp and what’s not!
CROP AND FULL-FRAME DSLRS The depth of field is governed more by the ‘actual’ rather the ‘effective’ focal length of a lens. With Canon EOS DSLRs, you’ll therefore get a tighter depth of field when shooting with an APS-C format body, eg EOS 90D, than with a full-frame format body, eg EOS 5D Mark IV. This is because the smaller image sensor of an APS-C camera has a 1.6x crop factor that magnifies the effective focal length - eg 50mm becomes 80mm.
01 AV MODE
02 APERTURE CHOICE
03 FOCAL POINT
04 FOCAL LENGTH
The easiest way to control aperture is to use Av mode (Aperture priority). You can then set the aperture, and your camera will set the shutter speed for a standard exposure. Remember: wide apertures for shallow DoF, narrow apertures for a larger depth of field.
The closer your focus, the shallower the DoF, but as you focus further in, DoF gets larger. Even using a ‘fast’ EF 50mm prime at f/1.4 (see right), by focusing on the man on dock, the foreground is the most blurred, the boats in the background are sharper.
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Use a wide aperture of f/4 and long focal length to isolate subjects against a blurred background (also known as ‘bokeh’). The seagull photos (right) were shot at a focal length of 165mm – note how the birds all become sharper as the apertures gets narrower.
The type of lens you use also has an effect on DoF. In scenic shots, when you want a large DoF to keep everything sharp from foreground to the horizon, use a wide-angle lens and at a narrow aperture (eg 16mm at f/22), and focus around a third into the scene. www.digitalcameraworld.com
CONTROL DEPTH OF FIELD
f/16 at 100mm
QUICK TIP!
A good way for maximizing depth of field for scenic shots is to focus about a third of the way into the scene
f/4 at 165mm f/8 at 165mm
f/11 at 165mm
f/22 at 165mm
WHERE YOU FOCUS AFFECTS DEPTH OF FIELD
By focusing on the man on dock well into the scene, even at wide apertures, the foreground is what’s blurred f/1.4
The Canon Magazine
f/2.8
f/5.6
f/8
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Theprointerview 03 COLIN FIRTH, THE OLD VIC, 1985
The Oscar-winning actor prepares for an early stage role as Felix for The Lonely Road, by Christopher Fetts, before his film and TV career took off
Lens
80mm
Exposure
Not recorded, Kodak Tri-X 400 film
04 GILLIAN ANDERSON, THE YOUNG VIC, 2016
Simon needed just four minutes for this portrait of the actress as she gets into role as the troubled Blanche Dubois in Tennesee William’s great play, A Streetcar Named Desire
Lens
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM
Exposure
1/80 sec, f/4, ISO800
05 DAME JUDI DENCH, NOEL COWARD
THEATRE, 2013 The great actress photographed while talking about her late husband Michael Williams before a performance of Peter and Alice by John Logan
Lens
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Exposure
1/50 sec, f/3.2, ISO800
The photographs are created by the relationship between me and them, and between them and themselves in their own head Are you printing these images for the exhibition all from scratch? One of the themes here is time because it’s the 25th anniversary of the theatre. The tag line I’ve got is that I’ve done 35 years photographing 35 minutes. So, I’m putting in some of the earlier stuff and there are examples of the same actor photographed twice, sometimes 10, 20 or even 30 years apart and putting the two images in the same frame, which is a bit unusual. I’m trying to balance the old black and white one with the new colour in the same 18x12 image area. Aesthetically, that’s quite a challenge One of the things is that the size of the head or the figure needs to balance on the left-hand side and the right-hand side. I’ve tended to reduce the black and whites to make it resemble a memory – make it smaller within the frame.
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Does The Half continue to be an on-going project? What I’ve discovered is that if you get known for doing a body of work and you get to the point where you want to move on, you have to consolidate it and keep it going. Because I’ve done that over 35 years I can draw on a number of actors whose profiles have changed considerably, Colin Firth and other actors like that, for example. How many actors have you photographed for The Half over the years? I’ve never counted really, but it must have been over 1500 at this point. How did the idea start and the opportunity first present itself? Well, my point of view is that if you’re a
photographer you need to have an interest other than photography. Photography is not about photography and my main interest was theatre. I went to a theatre school, Bradfield near Reading, which had its own Greek theatre built in about 1862 within its grounds, so that probably helped me gain an interest. Then I was caught up in the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and Griff Rhys Jones was doing Charley’s Aunt there and I thought his performances were amazing. He was getting the laughs constantly. I wasn’t a photographer then, I was just pulling pints. I bought my first camera and asked him if I could photograph him just behind the flat on the stage, so that when he popped his head through the window and he got this belly laugh from the audience I could photograph him before he did that. I found that www.digitalcameraworld.com
Simon annand
Out of the 1500 or so actors you’ve photographed, has anyone actually said no? Oh yeah, there’s been a few. It tends to usually be Americans. Either it’s because to be on the stage in the West End as an American you have to be an A-lister and they get photographed often. Over here, I have a bit of a name so there’s not really a problem with English actors. Unless you have a bit of a reputation, an American might say, “thank you very much, but no.” But it’s not always the case: I saw Matthew Broderick the other day who’s delightful because I think he gets the idea. He saw the work and thought, whoever takes these pictures must be okay, is trustworthy and is on the actor’s side. I’m not trying to expose them, or be clever with them.
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interesting, so I thought let’s go one step further back, into the dressing room. What was he like there? I was curious as he was playing a very ebullient character on stage, but in the dressing room he was more melancholic. It’s a bit of a cliché that comedians are like that, but it was true (in this case), so I thought this was interesting and started to collect whoever was playing at that theatre and then broadened to the West End. You bought your first camera then, was that Canon? I’ve been using Canon for about 25 years. It was Nikon to start with and I had the whole lot nicked – I replaced it with Canon. I still use a Canon EOS-1DS Mark III and have no reason to change. I’ve had two or three different models. The Canon Magazine
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The last 30 minutes before curtain up is a very private time, so trust is an incredibly important element for you to gain access? Trust is important, but every actor will use that private time in different ways, either for their preparation in a physical, a vocal, or an intellectual way, according to the script. Some people are method (actors) so they wouldn’t want you to speak to them at all, and at the opposite end of the spectrum you’ve got someone who won’t go into the part until two minutes before they actually step onto the stage. I’m careful about when I approach someone. It’s usually quite late on in the run, they’ll know their performance backwards so I won’t be distracting them.
CANONSCHOOL
DIGITAL SLR ESSENTIALS In this edition of Digital SLR Essentials we explain all you need to know about the Creative Modes on your EOS camera
Marcus Hawkins Photo expert Marcus has been passionate about photography for more than 25 years. A former editor of our sister publication Digital Camera, he has written about photography and cameras for a wide range of clients, including Canon and Jessops, and uses a Canon EOS 5D Mk III.
Getting into the Creative Zone I How to take more control of your exposures f you’re looking to move on from basic point-and-shoot photography, or you just want to take more creative control of your settings to take your photography to the next level, we can help you! EOS cameras have their modes split into Basic Zone and Creative Zone modes. The Creative Zone modes include Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual. Each of these give you varying amounts of control over the exposure of your images. Program makes a first step into the Creative Zone, as the camera continues to do the heavy lifting. It will set an appropriate combo of aperture and shutter speed, based on
the ISO, lighting and lens (the camera will attempt to ensure that the shutter speed is fast enough to get a sharp result with the used focal length). It may not sound creative, but you can change the combo of aperture and shutter speed by using Program Shift. All that’s needed is a spin of the main dial: if you want a faster shutter speed/larger aperture, rotate the dial one way; if you need a slower shutter speed/ smaller aperture, rotate it in the opposite direction. Program is a great choice when you want to focus on getting a picture sharp and well exposed, but the fact that the camera chooses aperture and shutter speed, and ISO if you switch this to its Auto setting, can feel a bit limiting.
Get to know the Mode dial Although not every EOS camera has a mode dial, the Creative Zone modes available are the same from entry-level bodies up to pro DSLRs. Av is ‘Aperture value’. Canon’s Aperture Priority AE (Auto Exposure) mode allows you to set the aperture, and the camera sets the shutter speed for a standard exposure.
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Tv is ‘Time value’. Shutter Priority AE in other words. You dial in a specific shutter speed and the camera adjusts the aperture to give a standard exposure for the shot. P is Program AE. Here the camera sets the aperture and shutter speed, but you can ‘shift’ the combo to suit the subject of the photo.
Fv is a new mode. ‘Flexible value’ (or Flexible Priority AE) lets you switch from semi-auto to full manual without having to change mode. Dial M for Manual. You set the aperture and shutter speed, There are some instances where only the control and consistent results given by a manually set exposure will do.
P mode will handle the exposure for you, but you can override it www.digitalcameraworld.com
Creative modes key camera settings
When aperture takes priority Use the semi-automatic Av mode to alter the depth of field ne of the most useful autoexposure modes, Aperture Priority (Av) allows you to choose a preferred aperture from the range available on the lens. The camera will then select a suitable shutter speed to produce what it determines is the correct exposure. This is not always the case, though, sometimes it may be too dark (underexposed), sometimes too bright (overexposed), but you can correct this for subsequent shots using exposure compensation. Av is the mode to choose when you want to control the depth of field. Large apertures (represented by low f-numbers, such as f/1.8 and f/2.8) give you large amounts of blur and small amounts of sharpness, whereas small apertures (high
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f-numbers, such as f/16 and f/22) give smaller amounts of blur and more sharpness. Confused by the numbers? Think of it in terms of fractions: 1/4 is larger than 1/16th, so f/4 lets more light in than f/16. One thing to watch out for with Aperture Priority is the shutter speed becoming too slow to get sharp results when you choose a small aperture or the light drops. One way to avoid this is to set the ISO to Auto. The camera will then raise the ISO to make up for the loss of light. Some EOS bodies let you set a min shutter speed that you want to achieve, but this may not be possible if it requires an ISO setting that’s unavailable to the camera.
ISO
WB SET
AF
An aperture of f/2.8 brings just a few reed stems into focus and blurs the lake in the background
Controlling shutter speed on your camera
When you want to freeze a moment or record motion blur, it’s time to fire up the Tv hutter Priority works similarly to Aperture Priority, but instead you manually set the shutter speed you’d like to use and the camera pairs this with an aperture that should give
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The Canon Magazine
a balanced exposure. Again, the camera doesn’t always get the exposure correct, but you can use compensation to brighten or darken pictures. Shutter Priority makes sense when the way in which
moving objects are rendered in an image is the most important consideration. You can set a fast shutter speed to freeze a moment in time, or opt for a slower shutter speed to record movement as a blur. The precise shutter speed you need to use will depend on how fast the object is moving and how close you are to it (the nearer you are, for example, the faster the shutter speed will need to be in order to freeze action). This mode is arguably less versatile than Aperture Priority, as there’s a smaller range of apertures available to the camera, compared with the range of shutter speeds. If you set a very fast shutter speed then
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ONE SHOT Q
F16
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100
OFF
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You can set the a shutter speed to give your preferred balance of sharpness and motion blur
the camera may not be able to set an aperture that’s large enough to let enough light in. The lowest f-number will blink in the display to warn you of underexposure, so you can set a higher ISO or slower shutter speed to fix this. If the highest f-number is blinking, then the picture will be overexposed, so choose a lower ISO or a faster shutter speed accordingly.
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dslrTEST
Canon EOS 90D
We give Canon’s new all-rounder APS-C EOS camera the full test treatment to see how it performs in real-world conditions
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he EOS 90D is the most exciting thing to happen in the Canon DSLR world for quite a while! Canon has really raised its game with a all-new 32.5-megapixel sensor with 25 per cent more resolution than any of its existing APS-C cameras. But while it’s the new sensor that’s grabbed most of the headlines, there’s much more to the EOS 90D than a few more megapixels. For a start, it looks like this is a fusion of the existing Canon EOS 80D and the high-speed EOS 7D Mk II: you get the higher resolution sensor in the same enthusiast-friendly body as the 80D, plus the 10fps continuous shooting speed of the 7D Mk II too. Canon’s new camera brings a combination of speed and resolution we haven’t seen before. The ‘old’ EOS 80D was a terrific all-rounder, but the 90D successor brings high-speed continuous shooting into
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the mix to make what looks the ultimate do-it-all Canon DSLR. But that’s not all, of course. For video fans, the EOS 90D takes an even bigger step forward. It captures 4K video, as we’d expect, so it’s already a step ahead of the 80D and 7D Mk II, but what’s important is that it’s ‘uncropped’ 4K video. It’s not the first Canon APS-C camera to
With a new 32.5Mp sensor, DIGIC 8 processor, 10fps burst rate, 45 AF points and 4K video, is this Canon’s best-ever APS-C camera?
capture 4K video, but previously this has meant a narrower angle of view that makes all your lenses ‘longer’ and less ‘wide’. With the EOS 90D’s uncropped 4K video, the angle of view of your lenses is unchanged. Thanks to Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF, the EOS 90D offers fast and smooth Live View autofocus for both stills and video, and just to complete the video features, there’s both an external mic socket and a headphone socket for monitoring audio levels while filming. Other notable features include a new joystick controller on the back of the camera, improved battery life (now an amazing 1300 shots) and even a slight weight reduction compared to the 80D. Otherwise, the 90D is very much like the 80D, with a familiar, robust body shape but a larger grip, and the same twin multi-function control dials.
Build and handling
The new 90D has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi built-in to work together with smart devices running the Canon Camera Connect app
There was plenty of speculation leading up to the launch of the 90D, with the prevailing chatter that it would merge and succeed both the Canon EOS 80D and 7D Mark II. While the official word from Canon is that it’s a replacement for the 80D, the EOS 90D’s joystick on the back www.digitalcameraworld.com
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Full test Canon EOS 90D
of the body is a definite amalgamation of features from both of the cameras. The EOS 90D retains the 80D’s fully articulating touchscreen, along with the dedicated microphone and headphone jacks, making the 90D just as geared towards video – ideal for the newly uncropped 4K mode, which records to the entire image sensor. The body feels familiar to the EOS 80D in both operation and build quality. It’s not an all-weather camera, and doesn’t have the feel of a high end body, but neither does it feel like a flimsy entry-level camera – particularly with the addition of the handy joystick. This does, however, cause a slight juggling of buttons from the 80D, which is guaranteed to confuse your muscle memory. The joystick now occupies the spot where the Q button used to be – the Q button replaces the Play button, just above the control dial, while The Canon Magazine
the Play button now sits where the Trashcan button used to live, just to the right of the LCD (the Trashcan button is now slotted to the right of its former home). Size-wise the 90D is very similar to the 80D – 141x105x77mm compared to 139x105x79mm respectively. However, the 90D’s substantially lighter – 29g lighter to be precise, than the 80D’s 730g.
With the 90D’s 45 AF points and 10-frames-persecond burst mode, it makes it easier to focus on the action, wherever it is in the frame
new controls Canon says the EOS 90D is built on the design of the EOS 80D, with a familiar, sturdy body with the top LCD plate. Plus a large grip for better balance and handling with larger EF lenses, twin multi-function dials, including one newly-created multi-controller joystick on the back – control technology that’s filtered down from Canon’s pro-level ¥.
In the hand, then, it’s much like wielding a lighter 80D – an 80D without a battery, almost. Which is interesting, as Canon has done anything but take the battery away…
Performance
While the 80D was CIPA-rated to 960 shots from a full battery, the Canon EOS 90D has improved this to an impressive CIPA-rated 1300 shots – from the same battery, the LP-E6N. However, Canon tells us that informal testing yields as many as 1830 shots per battery – something that’s all the more relevant for the target market, since the company is pitching the 90D squarely at trigger-happy sports and wildlife shooters. We first put the camera through its paces on a fast-moving indoor go karting circuit; while we were impeded from optimal shooting thanks to the horrendously low light, we were still impressed by the body’s ability to crank out frames
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