Thinking of a dslr but.....which one?

[Andy79]

Hi everyone....next month at work we all get a bonus so i am thinking of purchasing two electronic goodies for that much needed kudos.

First off i want to get a laptop so i can finally download stellarium

But i also want a dslr aswel for general photos plus i would like it to be compatible with my scope...i have an absolute budget of 400 notes for the camera so for now i would just require the basic dslr package ie: dslr with an 18-55mm lens (iv seen how much the other lenses are..gulp..).

Im thinking of the sony alpha 390 14mp or a canon eos 1000d 10mp.

Maybe you could suggest some alternatives but my limit is 400 max.

Obviously i would like more pixels thats why i am slightly leaning towards the sony but photography is deep water without a float for me so any advice on/about these two weapons will be much appreciated and also very helpful.Maybe you have/had one of these dslr's and can shed some light for me ie: ease of use..scope fitments and does more pixels mean better quality pics when it comes to the night sky?

And so far my only resource is the argos catalogue lol! Where could i find the best deals.I also dont really want to buy second hand from eBay id rather buy new so i know it hasnt been messed with.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

Andy

[brantuk]

Although different makes are frequently used - the most common cameras I've seen around the astro community are the Canon ones. They seem to be the easiest adaptable and have the most accessories, connectors, filters, etc, and most modifiable for astro use. Seems allmost to be a standard.

Of the two you mention I'd recommend the 1000D - unmodified it produces both good daytime and night time astro shots - it's light in weight - and has live view for focussing - very good value for money. Lots of folks have done the astro mods on it themselves - though I'd be too chicken for that lol

Here's where I got all my advice on Canons for astro use: http://www.astronomiser.co.uk/helpcanon.htm

[malc-c]

Have to agree, Canon appears to be the defacto camera for astro work.

[chemtom24]

go for secondhand gear, get more for your money

[Neil McRae]

Andy go for the Canon as Brantuk says the Live view is great.

Neil

[Andy79]

Thanks for the replys so far im suprised that the canon is more popular than sony to be honest i guess how many pixels a dslr has isnt too much of an issue when it comes to astrophotography?

chemtom i realise that i could get more for the money buying second hand..its personal preference but i dont really want to be spending that kind of cash on something i dont really know much about second hand...it wont stop me from looking tho!

Can anyone fight sonys corner?

Will these cameras work well with the 150pl and what attachments would i need?

I realise my eq3 mount may or may not be up to the job as its not stable at the best of times but i could work around this and have a remote for the camera and maybe some sandbags for the mount to aid stableness.

[Andy79]

Neil sorry but what is live view??

[blackparticle]

Getting a camera for photos is one thing but adding it to the end of your scope is a whole other scenario. While I'm new to telescopes I have done photography for a few years and taking a photo of anything in the sky with a DSLR camera can be tricky.

Without motorising your mount you will be restricted to what you can image.

Lunar images are fine. It is bright enough to shoot like a normal photo. 1/60s at ISO100 should easily be achievable with the SW 150p. Here a DSLR will produce stunning pictures.

Planetary.. Yeah.. I'm having increasing success at Saturn using eyepiece projection but it's a pain spending hours taking hundreds and hundreds of photos to then stack up.. and then I look on here and just get blown away by all the stacked webcam images shot in 5 minutes. Unless the DSLR also does video, it's just not suited as it cannot capture enough frames within a short space of time.

Deep Sky. Forget it... at least with the telescope and stick to camera lenses for wide-field shots. You can piggy back the camera on the telescope if you add some extra weight to balance it out.

As a rough guide, with a 28mm lens you can get away with approx 10 seconds exposure time without getting star-trails (depending on angle of sky).. A 250mm lens and you are down to approx 1 second.

The SW 150PL has a whopping great 1200mm focal length. Add to that the fact you will require your x2 barlow to get the camera to focus down the scope and you're up at 2400mm.. or approx 1/10 second max exposure.

Personally, I'd say if you want a real-world camera and a pop at astro-imaging and you have a £400 budget... forget the DSLR and have a look at the Fuji FinePix range which start at £100. eBay is awash with the slightly older models so a good bargain could be had on the camera without the fear of having to buy new.

Digital SLR / Bridge Cameras / Long Zoom Digital Cameras from Fujifilm UK

With all the money saved I'd either upgrade your mount or get a motor for it (though I hear the EQ3 is still inadequate for reliable deep sky imaging).. and then add a video camera to your laptop setup and some stacking software.

Remarkably, due to the software aspect, the camera is actually the least important part of imaging.. The mount is the key factor by all accounts.

Hope this helps.

Alan.

[brantuk]

"Will these cameras work well with the 150pl and what attachments would i need?"

The 150P on EQ3-2 will require a Right Ascension (RA) tracking motor as a minimum and would be ideally suited to planets and moon imaging (with it's long focal length). However I wouldn't attempt that with a dslr (wrong tool really).

The ideal tool for planetary is a webcam - currently the Philips SPC880 (flashed to resemble an SPC900) is the better and cheaper alternative. All it requires is a 1.25" nosepeice and a few bits of software (Registax and wxAstroCapture). Should cost no more than £30-£40 (the software is free to download).

Planets are very bright, and as Alan says, shorter exposures and lots of them are best, especially to get through the seeing. However - dso's are very faint and to capture the light you need long exposures, and very accurate tracking on a polar aligned mount/tripod. The dslr is the better tool for this (unless you want to spend thousands on a ccd camera) along with Deep Sky Stacker software (also free).

To connect it up you'd need a T-ring, and a T-threaded adaptor for prime focus photography with the scope. If you go this route I would consider a mount upgrade to something beefier and more sturdy - an EQ-5 with Synscan Goto or a CG5GT would handle the 150P very nicely. Some people have had up to 2 mins exposures with this setup.

For longer exposures of 3-5 mins plus you'll need to add in guiding. This means a second scope and camera, dual tracking, and highly accurate polar alignment. The most important part of the rig for dso imaging is the mount you may be surprised to hear.

The very best thing you can do at this stage is to get a copy of "Making Every Photon Count" which will give you a full rundown on astro imaging and far more detail than I can offer here. It's by Steve Richards (Steppenwolf on SGL). It's an easy read and covers everything you need to know before buying any equipment.

Beginners guide to astro-photography

RegiStax- Free image processing software

Buy Philips SPC880 webcam at Morgan Computers

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

And here's an example of a very basic dso setup using a Canon 1000D, and a picture taken on the same rig with a 350D. Hope that helps

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/136441-kelling-heath-28-3-11-flaming-star-nebula.html

(Scroll to bottom of thread for final image)

[Andy79]

Thankyou very much for your info alan and brantuk...didnt realise those webcams were that cheap

[brantuk]

If you do go for the SPC880 it's worth paying the quid or two extra for them to pre flash it for you (you'd need an XP system to flash it so it saves a bit of bother).

Plus it's allways a good idea to start with planets just to get accustomed to all the demands that imaging places on you (focussing, collimation, judging seeing, computer control, etc). Good luck

[Sparrow]

I'd recommend the Canon DSLRS - I'm using the 1000D and am very pleased with it - I'd recommend this one but for the fact that I gather newer Canon models have a better response to the red part of the spectrum which is the weak point of an unmodded DSLR. A new Canon comes bundled with software that enables remote control via the laptop although there are other software options available for Canons. I know a friend of mine has a Pentax DSLR - very nice camera but no bundled software and to buy the remote software for it is very expensive.

All in all, I think there is more support for the Canons than any other make in the Astro community so if you should need help, you're more likely to get it for a Canon.

Hope this helps

Regards

John

[blackparticle]

Personally, I find for actual photography that the Canons are a bit soulless in their reproduction. Too clinical and precise. Everything ends up looking like stock photography. Certain things can suffer from too much implied perfection.

Which is why I chose Pentax. They've managed to design digital cameras that capture that essence of film. They feel more like traditional photographs than quantized digi-optical representations of captured photons.

For astrophotography though where the exposure times can be huge I reckon the Canons score highly for sheer remote useability and ease of use. The fact they can be tweaked specifically and can have filters upgraded etc is a big plus too.

Its also a subject matter where perfection is anything but implied.

I really should have a look myself before I destroy the shutter mech in my K10D.

[Neil McRae]

Andy79 Live View is a feature on the Canon where you can select this and have the image projected on the screen of your camera. By using the magnification button on the camera you can X5 or X10 the view which helps when manually focussing.

Neil

[Andy79]

Thanks Neil!

So from the comments that iv read so far then that cannon is the way to go for astrophotography work because of the add ons ie: filters etc and the fact these can be modded if need be.

Is 10mp enough tho for a camera of this type?

[malc-c]

I think that people get hung up on the mega pixel thing. Unless you want to blow your image up to bill board size, 10Mp is fine

I think the reason Canon is the preferred choice is because the CCD is sensitive enough to pick up the photons from faint objects, but also have very low noise levels and don't suffer from "hot pixels" like other brands. I have an Olympus 500 dSLR 8MP and I was going to give up using a dSLR with my scope because the images were peppered with lots of red/green and blue pixels even when exposing for short (less than 60 seconds) exposures. I then picked up a second hand Canon 400D and it has really achieved decent results for my fledgling start into imaging with the scope.

I have to agreed with the others, if you want planetary images then webcam is the way to go

[Andy79]

Iv seen in a lot of members sigs that they have a dslr and webcam....do you need both or can you make do with one or the other?

I understand now that pixels isnt a major issue now because my phone is 5mp and pictures from that are crisp like walkers...when it gets focus

[AndyDix]

I would go for the 1000d also.

I have one and its great

Andy

[Andy79]

Cannon it is then lol.

So is the sony A390 not really useful for astrophotography then? Or is it because there isnt much going for it with regards to add ons/ telescope adaptors etc?

[Psychobilly]

If you are going to use it for "other" things as well then consider the 1100D over the 1000D the 1000D is a cracking "budget" astro DSLR .. I use one that I modified myself...

Couple of Images from it on "scopes" here and Widefield with Camera lenses here

Billy...

[brantuk]

The Sony A390 is fine for astro work - no probs at all - but the Canons kinda set a standard years ago being the first ones out with adequate pre-requisites for imaging at a reasonable price.

If you have too many megapxels packed too tightly it can cause higher levels of noise and require more processing out in software. Even some of the Canon models suffer this.

Generally dslr's are a good stopgap between webcams and proper ccd imaging cameras which run into thousands of quids. Their affordability make them popular and the "astro flexibility" of Canons have made them a kind of default choice.

[malc-c]

The problem is that unless someone has used a Sony A390 for dso imaging no one can tell you if it's any good. It may be the bees knees in terms of it's compatibility with othrhe branded lenses, but when used as an astronomical camera it may suffer with hot pixels like my Olympus does. Personally I think that if the Sony cameras were that good everyone here would be using one, but they are not and as you can see by the responses, they use a Canon of some description.

The other thing to bear in mind is most of us use software such as APT to take the exposures. This requires either a serial shutter release cable or via USB between the camera and the computer, both of which have been tried and tested with various models. It may well be that this function is not supported by your camera, or the software, and whilst the Sony looks a nice camera, it might be £350 down the drain when you come to use it with a telescope.