Canon EOS350D vs 400D

[SteveA]

I'm thinking of getting a DSLR and the Canon EOS cameras seem a popular and well regarded model. I read a review in a recent issue of S@N Magazine that gave the older 350 the edge, principally because the rear screen of the 400 was very bright and it wasn't possible to dim this for night time use. I was wondering though, surely the fact that the focus screen is larger on the 400 must make it easier to focus on faint objects and also the fact that the 400 has an extra 2 MegaPixels wouldn't this give better images ? If anyone has any views I'd be most interested..

[Vega]

Hi Steve

I have the 400D and the LCD screen is bright on first use at night. However there is simply an option to reduce the LCD screen brightness, so not sure what they are going on about there. The LCD screen is huge too. It's larger than the 350 screen making it easier to review your focussing on your pictures (especially when zooming in as well). I haven't owned a 350 to compare but the 400 is a fantastic piece of kit for astro-photography in my opinion. There is a higher resolution as you say but to be honest 'better images' are down to how good your focussing and polar alignment are. You gotta master those two challenges even before thinking about image resolution (if you can get focussing good enough to display a crisp full res. image then I take my hat off to you!). To be honest 10Megapixel is more than enough even for blowing your images to poster size as long as the focussing warrants it.

Matt

[Vega]

oops double posted ignor this lol

[MartinB]

My understanding for astroimaging is that resolution is determined by the relationship between pixel size and focal length of scope used. FLO Steve is an expert on this sort of stuff.

[moondog]

The 350D has 2 'screens', a larger ( but still smaller than 400D) LCD screen to review recorded images and a very small and dim orange 'settings' LCD (can't really call it a screen!). Doesn't the 400D use the single review LCD screen for the settings command ? This is what they mean when they talk about the 350D being more suitable for astro use - you can change the camera settings on the dim orange LCD and preserve your night vision.

The extra pixels on the 400D aren't all that important for astro imaging. The auto sensor cleaning would be useful though.

The Canon certainly takes good astro images for a DSLR.

MD

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

What do you want night vision for if you are imaging though? You need to be able to see all the wires and general "stuff" on the floor so that you don't crunch anything. I think the maximum zoom on the preview would be the most important thing to look at with a DSLR for astro use. Anybody have any comparisons on these?

I spoke to James many months ago when I got the ST80 off him and he told me that the 300D can zoom enough to check focus. That's not something that's reliable with my Nikon D50 as the preview zoom isn't deep enough really. A Hartman mask helps (with two slots cut in opposite directions) though, and slow focal ratio makes things less critical.

Does the higher pixel count mean deeper preview zoom I wonder?

Captain Chaos

[SteveA]

Thanks for the feedback guys...

In the end it came down to the price and although I think I convinced myself that the 400 would be best, I just couldn't ignore the deals available on the 350...at £350 it was just to good to be true...