The San Francisco 49ers were looking to extend their 2019 NFL season unbeaten streak to 7 games against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday October 27th at Levi’s stadium. This would be a great time to put the new Canon 90D through it’s paces during normal usage at a National Football League game. As you may remember from my first widely read Canon 90D reivew – NFL Action review, I used the 90D almost exclusively during the San Francisco 49ers vs Pittsburgh Steelers 2019 season home opener. Having a better feel for the Canon 90D and it’s capabilities this would be a normal game for the camera’s usage.

During the first NFL outing with the Canon 90D, I captured the game shooting full sized JPG and CRAW files. For this game, it would be full sized JPGs again, and full RAW files. To capture the bigger RAW files, I upgraded from the Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1 card to the faster Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-II which has a write speed of 300 MB vs 170 MB for the UHS-1 card. There is a quite large price difference in these cards. A quick check on Amazon shows the 64GB UHS-I selling for $20, and the 64GB UHS-II selling for $99. Before the game I did a quick test capturing full sized JPGs with RAW files on both cards on a test subject. The UHS-1 card could go about 22 captures before the buffer filled, while the UHS-II could capture about 24 or 25. The number of images before the buffer fills is quite dependent on the ISO, as higher ISO files are larger. I believe my quick test was done at ISO 200.

On a day when your team scores 51 points, you would think just about everything went your way. But not quite everything went right as San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo tries too late to get a pass off and is sacked in the end zone for a safety.  – Canon 90D on Canon 70-200 f 2.8 lens –  ISO 400 – f4.0 – 1/1000 at 168 mm.

On the other hand, there were so many touchdown celebrations, even the lineman got to spike the ball after a score. Canon 1DX on 70-200 f2.8 at 150mm – ISO 640 – f4.0 – 1/1250.

Canon 1DX 400 mm – ISO 250 – f4.0 – 1/640.

A whole lot of hands and feet trying to make the tackle. Canon 1DX – 400 mm – ISO 320 – f4.0 – 1/1600.

With the 2nd pick in the 2019 NFL draft the San Francisco 49ers select Nick Bosa from Ohio State. On what may be a defensive rookie of the year season, Nick Bosa had his best game ever in the NFL with three sacks, and a pass interception for 46 yards.
What no NFL head coach wants to see, is his starting quarterback trying to tackle a 6′ 4″ 266 lbs defensive lineman who is rambling down the field after an interception. Canon 90D – 400 mm – ISO 640 – f4.0 – 1/1000.

Canon 90D on 400 mm lens – ISO  400 – f4.0 – 1/1/1250.

When things are going right, things seem to go right as on this play when San Francisco 49er quarterback #10 Jimmy Garoppolo eludes the pass rush of several Carolina Panther players closing in on him. Canon 90D – 400mm lens – ISO 320 – f5.0 – 1/1250.

Three sacks on the day for Nick Bosa. Canon 1DX 400 mm – ISO 320 – f4.5 – 1/1250.

San Francisco 49er #26 Tevin Coleman leaps across the goal line to score one of his three touchdowns on the day. Canon 1DX 70-200 at 200 mm. ISO 320 – f4.0 – 1/800.

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The main reason for upgrading to the faster and more expensive SD card was so I could shoot full RAW along with full JPG to generate comparison files. Even with the faster UHS-II card, the buffer was hit at about 24 frames or so, while shooting previously CRAW & full JPG on a UHS-I card got me at least 30 frames before the buffer filled. My thoughts on a full sized JPG generated from CR3 RAW file converted to Adobe DNG file and then processed in Lightroom vs the full sized JPG file created by the camera then processed in Lightroom are, not much difference. The two main differences I noticed were that the CR3 RAW file generated JPG was sharper than the JPG created by the 90D camera, and that the 90D generated JPG has more saturation than the RAW file JPG.

Even with the 90D’s JPGs setting set to neutral, the file had more color pop and saturation than the RAW JPG. That’s some what to be expected. What wasn’t expected was the extra sharpness in the RAW JPG file. Not sure why it happens, but to get equal sharpness in both JPGs, I had to increase the camera’s JPG file sharpness setting about +25 to +30 vs the RAW JPG file in Lightroom. Even in the examples below, to my eye the RAW JPG is a little sharper. After my little experiment, I’m going back to CRAW and full JPG for two reasons, increased buffer size, and the full sized JPG is pretty equal to the JPG created from CR3 RAW file.

This a full frame image of #10 San Francisco 49er quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo setting up to pass. This image was made with the Canon 90D on a 400 mm lens at ISO 400 – f5.0 – 1/1250.

This image is 900 pixel x 600 pixel crop from the full frame image reduced to 6000 x 4000 pixels made from the RAW file.

This image is 900 pixel x 600 pixel crop from the full frame image reduced to 6000 x 4000 pixels made from the full sized JPG file.

If you are looking to shoot 4K video and have an extra $70,200 on you, then the Canon 50 to 1000 zoom lens might just be what you are looking for. “The lens is designed for use on cinema cameras with Super 35 sized sensors and is suitable for 4K acquisition. The lens features a built-in 1.5x extender providing a 75 to 1500mm zoom range, capable of supporting 4K resolution.”