Canon EOS 90D DSLR Camera, 4K Video

As described

This might be the camera I have been waiting from Canon for some time now, however the verdict is still out.

INTRODUCTION
I have been into amateur photography since the film days and once I got into digital photography I was a Canon shooter until 2017 when I discovered Pentax K-1.
I have also used mirrorless like Olympus E-M10 Mark II, Panasonic Lumix G9, Fuji X-T100 and Canon M50.
Since I started shooting with Pentax I pretty much abandoned all my Canon gear, including 5D Mark II, however I kept using Canon 70D mainly for air shows, nature and lately for birding as well as movie shooting.
I got more into birding lately and I was looking for a good alternative to a DSLR for this purpose. Tried Panasonic G9 with 100-400mm lens but it was not a match to Canon 70D and Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary. I really got a great copy that is tack sharp wide open at 600mm. This lens alone and 100-400L trombone was what was keeping me from dumping Canon for good.
Since I have been looking for something to upgrade my 70D for birding and air shows, I will be reviewing this camera mostly from this point of view.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The build is very similar to 70D. The major difference I noticed the most is the grip, which is protruding more and it is more comfortable to hold the camera with a big zoom lens.
For people with smaller hands it might be somewhat of an adjustment but it fits me just right. Other than the grip, the joystick and few buttons placed slightly differently, it feels really like the same camera.
The menus changed slightly but it took me no time to set it up pretty much same way I had 70D set up.

SHOOTING PERFORMANCE
I just received it today (9/12/2019) and went outside to shoot some comparison hand held shots with my Sigma 150-600mm.
Since it was late the light was getting more and more challenging. Stationary subject for now and auto ISO max 3,200 on both 90D and 70D with 6.3 aperture.
First thing I noticed was a difference in the shutter sound and I must say I like it much more than the one of 70D. It is more subtle yet sounds pretty assuring. I know this is more intangible quality but I like it. Never paid too much attention to this until 90D.
The second thing that stood out was that 90D was suggesting slightly different shutter speed at the same auto ISO and aperture. 90D would also sometimes pick slightly different auto ISO as well. In general the numbers looked like 90D is slightly more sensitive than 70D.
Have not had a chance to test tracking yet but I tried burst RAW only shooting and with Lexar Professional 1667x 128GB SDXC UHS-II at the maximum 10 frames per second rate the buffer filled up in 3 seconds. At 3 frames per second rate (slow burst mode) the buffer filled up after 19 seconds. After that it became very random, from 1 per second to 4 per second frame rate.
In more realistic bird shooting simulation when I usually shoot 4-7 frames and take a second or so of brake between bursts, it took almost a minute or so for the buffer to start slowing the shooting down.

OCTOBER 2019 UPDATE:
Went out birding several times and in real time shooting situation I think the buffer only slowed me down once over several days. This is really good considering this thing does 10fps. So far so good.
I also tried some BIF of hawks and eagles flying around and I must say that the viewfinder performance in tracking mode seems much better than 70D. This all with my Sigma 150-600MM C.
Soon the air show will come to town and I will give 90D run through with my Canon trombone 100-400L.

AIRSHOW UPDATE:
Went to airshow with Canon 100-400L trombone and results are what I was waiting for.
Previously I shot airshows mainly with my Canon 5D Mark II as somehow the quality was better than 70D.
Now I can leave 5D behind and just use 90D from now on.
Autofocus performance in AFC mode was spot on and out of thousands of photos maybe few were not completely up to snuff.
I also attached some samples from the shoot.

PICTURE QUALITY
With the limited time I had to test so far I must say that the sharpness is there and the extra pixels make quite a difference. I did some comparison shots between 70D and 90D and must say that at the same zoom there is much more sharpness to photos.
Colors seem identical so far. I usually use DxO to process photos but 90D profile is not yet available for DxO yet so I only used Canon’s DPP.
The noise level at 3,200 ISO seems more pleasing on 90D than 70D.
I was looking for something with more resolution to shoot birds in case I need to crop.
My full frame Pentax has pixels but there is no lens that could compete with the reach of Sigma 150-600mm on the crop sensor.
I will post updates as I do more testing. Over next couple of weeks I will be doing more testing of actual birds and maybe some challenging birds in flight. I will also try some 4k videos.
I will also try testing some macro photography, including macro focus stacking as 90D has the macro bracketing function built in (although only in Live View shooting mode).

OCTOBER 2019 UPDATE:
Went out birding several times and the resolution bump makes a big difference. Much less cropping penalty, gets me closer to those smaller birds.
Picture quality very good and in focus hit ratio very good also.
I took my old 70D to do some comparisons with but I failed at that because as soon as I started to shoot birds with 90D I never put it away. It was that much of a difference.
Photos attached to this review are only processed with Canon DPP.

CONCLUSIONS
It is too early to tell just yet but this seems to be shaping up to be what I was looking for birding, nature and macro photography.
It may also become my travel camera as well since it is not very heavy and with two EF-S lenses it does not take that much space in the backpack.

OCTOBER 2019 UPDATE:
As of now only Canon DPP recognizes RAW images (had to be upgraded) but I suppose this will change soon enough.
This is okay for now but I hope DxO Photo Lab will add it to their camera lineup soon.
Still happy with the camera. Big upgrade from 70D for birding.

LATEST UPDATE:
DxO has the profiles now and they work great.

Battery life is improved with the slightly more capacity of new LP-E6N.
Old LP-E6 batteries also work just fine and the number of photos on one battery charge depends on how you shoot.
For example, at the air show I shot almost 3.5k photos, most in bursts at 10fps and the new battery lasted me for all of them.
You need to carry spare, because you will forget there is even battery there and eventually you will run out, usually when least expected ;-).

The multi controller (aka joystick) is very useful and welcomed addition.

Low light performance is improved over 70D but not by much.
However, considering that this is 32.5 megapixel APS-C it is not very surprising. In Canon world it is an equivalent of 86 megapixel full frame, which by the way does not exist. Therefore, expecting low light performance of full frame cameras would be like expecting technological miracle.
For low light birding I use Pentax KP crop camera but that one is 24 megapixels.

Cropping is double edged sword. If the subject is close enough but small, then cropping helps a lot and produces amazing results. However, when subject is pretty far away, cropping might be detrimental to the photo quality due to atmospheric conditions but that is just physics.
Just wanted to mention this so no one expects miracles.

Still keeping the camera, even after briefly considering putting pre-order on Canon R5.
However, for birding and air shows with the current lenses available (at reasonable prices) full frame will not work for me as well as 90D does.

Es una muy buena camara Reflex, uso mucho el formato APS-C por la magnificacion, compre adicional a mis lentes un lente de motor nano y estabilizador de imagen, de alta apertura, (1.8) por lo que las imágenes son brillantes y de extraordinaria calidad sin tener que gastar mas de cuatro veces en una R5, no tendrá todo pero tiene mas de lo que yo necesito

Originally had a T6 that I started out with a couple years ago. Thought it was finally time to upgrade. The camera is awesome. The images are crisp (compared to a t6). It’s bulkier and the features are a lot of fun to play with. The package also arrived a few days before the expected due date so I had the weekend to play with it. The only weird thing is that I bought the body only but it arrived in the box that would have included the lens. So that means the box was opened and separated. Everything else looked sealed tho and I’m overall very happy with my purchase.

Ya tenía tiempo viendo la Canon 90D y decidí comprarla, la verdad no me ha decepcionado. Adquirí únicamente el cuerpo y lo complementé con un lente Sigma 18-35mm 1.8