Introduction
The long-awaited EOS 90D is truly Canon’s “do-everything” camera for the photo enthusiast. It has 32.5 megapixels of resolution, guaranteed to boggle the minds of landscape and fine-art photographers. It can capture action at up to 11 frames per second with a seemingly bottomless buffer, making it a dream machine for sports photographers who routinely carried a “speed” camera with lower resolution in tandem with a higher-resolution model. Its built-in intervalometer effortlessly captures the beauty of an unfolding blossom, and it can shoot time-lapse movies with up to 4K resolution in the camera to track the progress of a construction project. The 90D adds an impressive focus bracketing feature that allows you to capture and compile deep-focus images with breathtaking depth-of-field.
But once you’ve unpacked your camera, the question comes up, how do I use this thing? All those cool features can be mind-numbing to learn, if all you have as a guide is the manual furnished with the camera. Help is on the way. I sincerely believe that this book is your best bet for learning how to use your new camera, and for learning how to use it well.
I’ve tried to make David Busch’s Canon EOS 90D Guide to Digital Photography different from your other 90D learn-up options. The roadmap sections use larger, color pictures to show you where all the buttons and dials are, and the explanations of what they do are longer and more comprehensive. I’ve tried to avoid overly general advice, including the two-page checklists on how to take a “sports picture” or a “portrait picture” or a “travel picture.” Instead, you’ll find tips and techniques for using all the features of your Canon EOS 90D to take any kind of picture you want. If you want to know where you should stand to take a picture of a quarterback dropping back to unleash a pass, there are plenty of books that will tell you that. This one concentrates on teaching you how to select the best autofocus mode, shutter speed, f/stop, or flash capability to take, say, a great sports picture under any conditions.
David Busch’s Canon EOS 90D Guide to Digital Photography is aimed at both Canon and dSLR veterans as well as newcomers to digital photography. Both groups can be overwhelmed by the options the 90D offers, while underwhelmed by the explanations they receive in their manuals. The manuals are great if you already know what you don’t know, and you can find an answer somewhere in a booklet arranged by menu listings and written by a camera vendor employee who last threw together instructions on how to operate a camcorder.
Who Am I?
After spending years as the world’s most successful unknown author, I’ve become slightly less obscure in the past few years, thanks to a horde of camera guidebooks and other photographically oriented tomes. You may have seen my photography articles in the late, lamented Popular Photography magazine, and dozens of other publications, such as Rangefinder and Professional Photographer. But, first, and foremost, I’m a photojournalist and made my living in the field until I began devoting most of my time to writing books.
Although I love writing, I’m happiest when I’m out taking pictures, which is why I invariably spend several days each week photographing landscapes, people, close-up subjects, and other things. I spend a month or two each year traveling to events, such as Native American “powwows,” Civil War re-enactments, county fairs, ballet, and sports (baseball, basketball, football, and soccer are favorites). I once relocated temporarily to Salamanca, Spain. I went there to shoot photographs of the people, landscapes, and monuments that I’ve grown to love, with about five hours a day set aside for study at a colegio located in an ancient monastery in the old part of the city, just steps from the cathedral. I can offer you my personal advice on how to take photos under a variety of conditions because I’ve had to meet those challenges myself on an ongoing basis.
Like all my digital photography books, this one was written by someone with an incurable photography bug. My first Canon SLR was a now-obscure model called the Pellix back in the 1960s, and I’ve used a variety of newer models since then. I’ve worked as a sports photographer for an Ohio newspaper and for an upstate New York college. I’ve operated my own commercial studio and photo lab, cranking out product shots on demand and then printing a few hundred glossy 8 × 10s on a tight deadline for a press kit. I’ve served as a photo-posing instructor for a modeling agency. People have actually paid me to shoot their weddings and immortalize them with portraits. I even prepared press kits and articles on photography as a PR consultant for a large Rochester, NY, company, which shall remain nameless. My trials and travails with imaging and computer technology have made their way into print in book form an alarming number of times.
Like you, I love photography for its own merits, and I view technology as just another tool to help me get the images I see in my mind’s eye. But, also like you, I had to master this technology before I could apply it to my work. This book is the result of what I’ve learned, and I hope it will help you master your 90D, too.
In closing, I’d like to ask a special favor: let me know what you think of this book. If you have any recommendations about how I can make it better, visit my website at www.canonguides.com, click on the E-Mail Me tab, and send your comments, suggestions on topics that should be explained in more detail, or, especially, any typos. (The latter will be compiled on the Errata page you’ll also find on my website.) I really value your ideas, and I appreciate it when you take the time to tell me what you think! Some of the content of the book you hold in your hands came from suggestions I received from readers like yourself. If you found this book especially useful, tell others about it. Visit https://www.amazon.com/dp/1681986027 and leave a positive review. Your feedback is what spurs me to make each one of these books better than the last. Thanks!