This chapter and the next provide a basic pre-flight checklist that you need to complete before you really spread your wings and take off with your Canon EOS 90D. You won’t find a lot of detail in these first two chapters. Indeed, I’m going to tell you just what you absolutely must understand, accompanied by some interesting tidbits that will help you become acclimated to your camera. I’ll go into more depth and even repeat some of what I explain here in later chapters, so you don’t have to memorize everything you see. Just relax, follow a few easy steps, and then go out and begin taking your best shots—ever.
Even if you’re a long-time Canon shooter, I hope you won’t be tempted to skip this chapter or the next one. I realize that you probably didn’t purchase this book the same day you bought your camera and that, even if you did, the urge to go out and take a few hundred—or thousand—photos with your new camera is enticing. As valuable as a book like this one is, nobody can suppress their excitement long enough to read the instructions before initiating play with a new toy.
No matter how extensive your experience level is, you don’t need to fret about wading through a manual to find out what you must know to take those first few tentative snaps. I’m going to help you hit the ground running with this chapter, which will help you set up your camera and begin shooting in minutes. Because I realize that some of you may already have experience with Canon cameras similar to the 90D, each of the major sections in this chapter will begin with a brief description of what is covered in that section, so you can easily jump ahead to the next if you are in a hurry to get started.
TIPThroughout this book, you’ll find short highlighted tips labeled My Recommendation or My Preference, intended to help you sort through the available options for a feature, control, or menu entry. I’ll provide my recommendations, suitable for most people in most situations, or my personal preferences, which work for me, and might work for you, too. I don’t provide these recommendations for every single feature, and you should consider your own needs before adopting any of them.
This section helps get you oriented with all the things that come in the box with your Canon EOS 90D, including what they do. I’ll also describe some optional equipment you might want to have. If you want to get started immediately, skim through this section and jump ahead to “Initial Setup” later in the chapter.
The Canon EOS 90D comes in an impressive box filled with stuff. Much of it is packaging, because Canon no longer includes a lot of the essentials they formerly provided with their cameras—including connecting cables, software CDs, and a comprehensive instruction manual of all the 90D’s features. What you do get is a camera body, lens (if you purchased the 90D in a kit), a battery/charger, neck strap, the warranty, and a miniature 4 × 6–inch starter guide with 246 pages of fine print devoted to the camera itself and an additional 58 pages on wireless connectivity. That’s it.
Checking the contents first is always a good idea. No matter who sells a camera, it’s common to open boxes, use a camera for a demonstration, and then repack the box without replacing all the pieces and parts afterward. Someone might have helpfully checked out your camera on your behalf—and then mispacked the box. At a minimum, the box should have the following:
My recommendation: While I am justifiably proud of owning a fine Canon camera, I prefer a low-key, more versatile and secure strap from UPstrap (www.upstrap.com). If you carry your camera over one shoulder, as many do, I particularly recommend the UPstrap shown in Figure 1.1. That patented non-slip pad offers reassuring traction and eliminates the contortions we sometimes go through to keep the camera from slipping off. I know several photographers who refuse to use anything else. If you do purchase an UPstrap, be sure you mention to photographer-inventor Al Stegmeyer that I sent you hence. You won’t get a discount, but Al will get yet another confirmation of how much I like his neck straps.
Don’t bother rooting around in the box for anything beyond what I’ve listed previously. There are a few things Canon classifies as optional accessories, even though you (and I) might consider some of them essential. Here’s a list of what you don’t get in the box but might want to think about as an impending purchase. I’ll list them roughly in the order of importance:
Perhaps you want to use tiny 16GB cards—and lots of them. I’ve met many paranoid wedding photographers who like to work with a horde of smaller cards (and then watch over them very protectively), on the theory that they are reducing their chances of losing a significant chunk of the event or reception at one time (of course, that’s why you hire a second shooter as backup). Others, especially sports photographers, instead prefer a 32GB or 64GB card with room to spare. If you are shooting fast action at high frame rates, or transfer lots of photos to your computer with a speedy card reader, you might opt for the speediest possible memory card. Buy one (or two, or three) of your own and have your flash memory ready when you unpack your 90D.
My recommendation: I’ve recently standardized on 64GB and 128GB Lexar cards with up to 150 MB/second transfer rates. I like having that much capacity because I always shoot RAW, and frequently RAW+JPEG with my camera.
My recommendation: Buy extras (I own four, in total), keep them charged, and rotate their use to even out wear and free your mind from worry.
My recommendation: At around $270, the Canon Speedlite 470EX-AI is an affordable flash with an excellent combination of power, compact size, and features. These include Canon’s Auto Intelligent bounce flash technology that tilts and rotates the flash automatically, then calculates an appropriate diffused “bounce” exposure for the room. I’ll offer more information on electronic flash in Chapters 11 and 12.
My recommendation: The cable itself is a standard USB 2.0 mini-B cable used on many different cameras—available in a variety of lengths for as little as $4 or so. You don’t need to pay Canon’s prices for this accessory.
My recommendation: Purchase a generic HDMI Type A to HDMI Mini Type C cable instead. Canon’s six-foot HTC-100 cable can cost as much as $50 retail. You can find perfectly serviceable third-party cables for less than $20.
My recommendation: Unless you regularly do time-lapse or interval photography for long periods of time, you can probably skip this expensive accessory.
My recommendation: This is not the best accessory for those who wear glasses while shooting. I tend to flip my glasses up on my forehead, with the diopter adjusted for my vision, so this magnifying eyepiece works fine for me.
My recommendation: Many people love third-party grips from Meike, Neewer, Vivitar, and others, at a cost of less than $75 (basically, they all appear identical and made by the same company). I’ve used them and found them acceptable for occasional use. However, most people like to clamp their add-on grips and remove them only to change/recharge the main battery, subjecting the grip to a lot of abuse. If you intend to make a battery grip part of your permanent setup, the Canon version is much better made, more rugged, and guaranteed to work seamlessly with your camera.
My recommendation: These sometimes get lost in a camera bag or are accidentally removed. I bought an extra RS-60E3 cable and keep it in a small box in the trunk of my car, along with an extra memory card.
My recommendation: Because the IR remote is easily overpowered by bright lights and can’t be used when you are behind the 90D, I use it as my secondary remote control. However, they are also cheap and small, so I’ve bought a couple to keep handy in several camera bags.
My recommendation: Load the factory PDF manuals onto your smartphone or tablet and use the device’s PDF reader to access the manuals when you need them. You can also copy them onto a flash drive to read them on a desktop or laptop computer. Or, store them in the cloud for easy access from any device. This book is available in a take-along e-book version, as well.
This section helps you become familiar with the important controls most used to make adjustments. You’ll also find information on charging the battery, setting the clock, mounting a lens, and making diopter vision adjustments. If you’re comfortable with all these things, skim through and skip ahead to the next section.
The initial setup of your Canon EOS 90D is fast and easy. Basically, you just need to charge the battery, attach a lens, and insert a memory card. I’ll address each of these steps separately, but if you already feel you can manage these setup tasks without further instructions, feel free to skip this section entirely. You should at least skim its contents, however, because I’m going to list a few options that you might not be aware of.
Your Canon EOS 90D is a sophisticated hunk of machinery and electronics, but it needs a charged battery to function, so rejuvenating the LP-E6N lithium-ion battery pack furnished with the camera should be your first step. A fully charged power source should be good for approximately 1,300 shots (50 percent with flash), based on standard tests defined by the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) document, DC-002.
My experience is that the CIPA figures are often a little optimistic, so it’s probably a good idea to have a spare battery on hand. I always recommend purchasing Canon-brand batteries (for less than $80) over less-expensive third-party packs. My reasoning is that it doesn’t make sense to save $20 on a component for an advanced camera, especially since batteries (from Canon as well as other sources) have been known to fail in potentially harmful ways. Canon, at least, will stand behind its products, issue a recall if necessary, and supply a replacement if a Canon-brand battery is truly defective. A third-party battery supplier that sells under a half-dozen or more different product labels and brands may not even have an easy way to get the word out that a recall has been issued.
If your pictures are important to you, always have at least one spare battery available, and make sure it is an authentic Canon product.
All rechargeable batteries undergo some degree of self-discharge just sitting idle in the camera or in the original packaging. Lithium-ion power packs of this type typically lose a small amount of their charge every day, even when the camera isn’t turned on. Li-ion cells lose their power through a chemical reaction that continues when the camera is switched off. So, it’s likely that the battery purchased with your camera is at least partially pooped out, so you’ll want to revive it before going out for some serious shooting.
There are many situations in which you’ll be glad you have that spare battery:
Several battery chargers are available for the Canon EOS 90D. Purchasing an additional charging device offers more than some additional features: You gain a spare that can keep your camera running until you can replace your primary power rejuvenator.
Here’s a list of your power options:
My recommendation: Personally, I use a more flexible alternative. I purchased a Bestek 300w/3.1A power inverter that converts my vehicle’s power to 110V and has two AC and two USB charging outlets. I can use that compact device with any AC charger, and revitalize my iPad, iPhone, or Kindle at the same time. At about $30 on Amazon, it’s roughly $100 cheaper than Canon’s car charger. That makes a capability that most people (other than campers and survivalists) won’t use very often a bit more affordable.
When the battery is inserted into the LC-E6/6E charger properly (it’s impossible to insert it incorrectly), a Charge light begins blinking orange-red that indicates the battery is at least partially depleted. When the device completes the charge, the Full Charge lamp glows green, approximately two hours later. When the battery is charged, remove it from the charger, flip the lever on the bottom of the camera, and slide the battery in. (See Figure 1.3.) To remove the battery, you must press a white button, which prevents the pack from slipping out when the door is opened.
Your Canon EOS 90D is almost ready to fire up and shoot. You’ll need to select and mount a lens, adjust the viewfinder for your vision, and insert a memory card. Each of these steps is easy, and if you’ve used any Canon EOS camera in the past, you already know exactly what to do. I’m going to provide a little extra detail for those of you who are new to the Canon or digital SLR worlds.
As you’ll see, my recommended lens mounting procedure emphasizes protecting your equipment from accidental damage and minimizing the intrusion of dust. If your 90D has no lens attached, select the lens you want to use and loosen (but do not remove) the rear lens cap. I generally place the lens I am planning to mount vertically in a slot in my camera bag, where it’s protected from mishaps, but ready to pick up quickly. By loosening the rear lens cap, you’ll be able to lift it off the back of the lens at the last instant, so the rear element of the lens is covered until then.
After that, remove the body cap by rotating the cap toward the shutter release button. You should always mount the body cap when there is no lens on the camera, because it helps keep dust out of the interior of the camera, where it can settle on the mirror, focusing screen, the interior mirror box, and potentially find its way past the shutter onto the sensor. (Although the 90D’s sensor-cleaning mechanism works fine, the less dust it must contend with, the better.) The body cap also protects the vulnerable mirror from damage caused by intruding objects (including your fingers if you’re not cautious).
Once the body cap has been removed, remove the rear lens cap from the lens, set it aside, and then mount the lens on the camera by matching the alignment indicator on the lens barrel (red for EF lenses and white for EF-S lenses) with the red or white dot on the camera’s lens mount (see Figure 1.4). Rotate the lens away from the shutter release until it seats securely. (You can find out more about the difference between EF and EF-S lenses in Chapter 6.) Set the focus mode switch on the lens to AF (autofocus). If the lens hood is bayoneted on the lens in the reversed position (which makes the lens/hood combination more compact for transport), twist it off and remount with the edge facing outward (see Figure 1.5). A lens hood protects the front of the lens from accidental bumps, stray fingerprints, and reduces flare caused by extraneous light arriving at the front element of the lens from outside the picture area.
Those of us with less than perfect eyesight can often benefit from a little optical correction in the viewfinder. Your contact lenses or glasses may provide all the correction you need, but if you are a glasses wearer and want to use the EOS 90D without your glasses, you can take advantage of the camera’s built-in diopter adjustment, which can be varied from –3 to +1 correction. Press the shutter release halfway to illuminate the indicators in the viewfinder, then rotate the diopter adjustment knob next to the viewfinder (see Figure 1.6) while looking through the viewfinder until the indicators appear sharp.
If the available correction is insufficient, Canon offers a full range of Dioptric Adjustment Lens Series E correction lenses for the viewfinder window. If more than one person uses your 90D, and each requires a different diopter setting, you can save a little time by noting the number of clicks and direction (clockwise to increase the diopter power; counterclockwise to decrease the diopter value) required to change from one user to another. There are 18 detents in all.
You can’t take photos without a memory card inserted in your EOS 90D (although there is a Release Shutter without Card entry in the Shooting 1 menu that enables/disables shutter release functions when a memory card is absent—learn about that in Chapter 7). So, your final step will be to insert a memory card. Slide the door on the right side of the body toward the back of the camera to release the cover, and then open it. (You should only remove the memory card when the camera is switched off, but the 90D will remind you if the door is opened while the camera is still writing photos to the memory card.)
Insert the memory card with the label facing the back of the camera, as shown in Figure 1.7, oriented so the edge with the connectors goes into the slot first. Close the door, and your pre-flight checklist is done! (I’m going to assume you remember to remove the lens cap when you’re ready to take a picture!) When you want to remove the memory card later, push it inward to make the memory card pop out.
There are three ways to create a blank memory card for your 90D, and two of them are at least partially wrong. Here are your options, both correct and incorrect:
You can also press the Trash button, located in the lower-right corner of the back of the camera, to mark the Low-level format box on the Format screen. This tells the 90D to perform an additional, more thorough, formatting of the card after the initial format is finished. The low-level format serves to remove data from all writable portions of your memory card while locking out “bad” sectors, and can be used to restore a memory card that is slowing down as it “trips” over those bad sectors. This extra step takes a bit longer than a standard reformat and need not be used every time you format your card. However, once activated, the low-level format will be applied each time you format a new card until you uncheck the box.
Rotate the On/Off switch on top of the camera to the On position. Automatic sensor cleaning takes place (unless you specifically disable this action) as the 90D powers up. The camera will remain on or in standby mode until you manually turn it off. After a period of idling (which you can adjust from 1 to 30 minutes, or disable, in the Set-up 2 menu), the 90D goes into standby mode to save battery power. Just tap the shutter release button to bring it back to life. The automatic sensor cleaning operation does not occur when exiting standby mode.
Your 90D has two (count ’em) controls for navigating menus and screens horizontally and vertically (and diagonally, if necessary), but has unfortunately assigned them unnecessarily confusing names. One is the joystick-like raised button located adjacent to the upper-right corner of the LCD monitor. Its official name is Multi-controller 1, and it can be pressed (most often with your right thumb), in the left/right/up/down and intermediate diagonal directions. You can also press it inward for Enter/Return/Set–type functions.
The second directional control is the joypad-like area in the center of the rotating Quick Control Dial. (You’ll find all of these labeled in Figure 1.8.) Canon has named it Multi-controller 2, and it functions similarly to the “joystick” control (but the center SET button is a separate component). With previous cameras in this series (up to and including the 90D’s predecessor, the 80D), this control was simply called the “multi-controller.”
In this book, I will most often just refer to the “directional controls” or “multi-controller” when either control works just as well. When referring to one of them specifically, for simplicity I’ll just call Multi-controller 1 the joystick and Multi-controller 2 the directional buttons.
I’m going to introduce you to the keys/dials/wheels navigational controls first in this introductory chapter, rather than their touch-screen equivalents, because they are the most versatile (especially when you’re wearing bulky gloves!). Most functions can also be selected using the 90D’s touch screen, which I’ll explain in the Quick Start descriptions you’ll find in Chapter 2.
The first time you use the 90D, it may ask you to enter the time and date. (This information may have been set by someone checking out your camera on your behalf prior to sale.) Just follow these steps, using the controls shown in Figure 1.8.
Your Canon EOS 90D is ready to go. If you need a quick start for its basic operation, you’ll find it in Chapter 2.
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