AS MIRRORLESS cameras outsell DSLRs, it appears the manufacturers still selling DSLRs are pulling out all stops to extend the life of what is arguably photography’s most successful design to date. And one of the advantages the DSLR seems to have over mirrorless cameras is speed, or if not speed, power usage.

With a DSLR, the viewfinder is always ‘on’ because you’re looking through an optical path which requires no power, whereas with mirrorless cameras, you need an electronic viewfinder (or the rear LCD screen), and this not only chews through power, it can take a split second to power on. It’s this split second that is so important for sport and wildlife photographers - and perhaps this is who Canon has in mind for its latest EOS 90D.

The EOS 90D DSLR shoots 10 fps with autofocus tracking and 11 fps in Live View. Canon suggests the optical viewfinder better enables the responsiveness needed to shoot wildlife, such as birds in flight, while all the camera’s essential settings are still visible within the viewfinder, as we would expect. And given the EOS 90D isn’t powering an EVF, a fully charged battery can provide enough juice for up to 1300 shots.

Inside, the new camera features a 32.5-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor coupled with the DiG!C 8 processor. The processor also unlocks lens correction tools, including the Digital Lens Optimiser and Diffraction Correction, which produce corrected images straight out of the camera.

Also improved is eye autofocus tracking (so face and eye are on board, but not head detection as found in the new EOS-1D X Mark III – see article later in the magazine), working in collaboration with a 220,000-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor with flicker detection. This new sensor works from ISO 100 to 25,600 and the camera focuses in very low light, down to EV -5 when used with lenses with f1.4 or wider apertures.

For more information, visit https://www.canon.com.au/cameras/eos-90d