john wrote:After waiting for years for a decent upgrade for the 7D and finally coming to the conclusion that it will probably never happen I took the plunge and decided to give the 90D a try. These are my 2 cents worth after shooting it for a month or so on bears, sheep and Eagles in reasonably difficult light (Haines if you've been there you know what I mean)
I found the af works pretty well with the 100-400 and snaps into focus quickly and seems to work fairly well in Al Servo. The spacing of multiple af points is a problem if the subject is small in the frame and often will grab behind or in front and render oof images. (I'm not good enough to keep a single focus point of a erratically flying bird) Trying to drive a 600mm lens with it is another story altogether. I think the lower voltage batteries are just not up to the task of driving the af system like a 1DX. Shooting a burst I'm lucky to get 3 or 4 pictures that are actually in sharp focus on Birds in flight. The buffer also fills up very quickly in raw so you need a really fast card. That is a real disappointment as It would be really nice to get away from having to put on a 1.4 on a full frame to get the reach.
The megapixel count is nice and gives incredible detail, but noise starts very early on this camera. You can start seeing noise even at 400 iso. The good news is that its not that horrible blotchy magenta/green stuff you see in dark shadows on the 7D. There is not near as much color noise and more contrast noise. So far I've found it pretty easy to deal with up to 3200 iso. After that I go with its too dark to shoot anyway.
I don't do video so that part of the camera is foreign and useless to me.
So as far as another fair weather low action camera I think it does a pretty good job, but as I was looking for something to attach to my 600 it has turned into a bit of a disappointment for me anyway. I've tried every AF setting combination I could think of without success so I assume its just the battery voltage and spread out af points. Not sure I would have bought it had I known that was going to be such a letdown.
Interesting, thank you for reporting your findings. I also had tested the 90d with the 100-400 II and found the AF to be quick and snappy with not much differences to my 7d2 here - as long as you shoot stationary or slow moving, larger and contrasty subjects (i.e. cars) against a simple background. There was no chance to test the 90D for tracking birds with the big guns when I could try the camera during a meeting of nature photographers.
There's an interesting thread started by Roger Clark over at dpreview who also was shooting eagles and seabirds in flight at Haines with the 90D plus 300mm +1,4 and he was VERY happy with the 90D, see
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63325007. Roger even rated the 90D a bit superior to the 7d2 here which has been controversial in the discussion after that and doesn't mirror my findings either. Browsing all the comments at POTN, dpeview etc, the experiences still are pretty different as for the tracking capabilities of the 90D. But the majority- me included- still concludes that the 90D is not quite on the same level compared to the 7d2. That said, Roger evidentally just had set the camera with one point AF for tracking. I don't know if this can explain the differences to others. Roger confirmed the buffer issue with the 90D, though.
I'm not sure if the battery voltage is the reason for the problems of the 90D/600mm combo you mention since the 7d(2) uses the same. I have no problems with my 7d2 attached to my 600mm, though. Maybe it's an internal difference in using the voltage for the AF, though, but as far as I know the 7d2 uses a dual digit processor which could make up for the better performance.
BTW, I'm not sure if you're referring to the 7d2 or orginal 7d in your comments. I had the original 7d some years ago but the 7d2 is miles ahead though inconsistency of the AF still can be an issue in bursts. Anyway, the 1Dx-series is no comparison to the 90D or 7d1, of course. But I also think that the AF system and array of the 90D (i.e. lacking the 4+1 option) is more limited compared to the 7d2 and evidentally not much different from the 80D (which I don't have).
As for noise of the 90D, I agree that it's visible even at ISO 400 but not more prominent as on the 7d2 and maybe even a bit less with the files of the 90D downsized to the dimensions of the 7d2. Anyway, as written in my last comment above and based of my direct comparisons, I could not confirm it to be 1 to 1.3 stops worse for the 90D - in contrary to Bartley's statement in his video. And as you say, it's less blotchy and easier to deal with compared to the 7d series. DR of the 90D is better, too.
In the end I still stand at my decision to stay with my 7d2 for now though the mega pixel count and other advances of the 90D are compelling.
Wolfgang
http://www.wjaekel-foto.de