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Which DSLR?

osbourne one-nil

By osbourne one-nil
in Discussions - Cameras

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osbourne one-nil

osbourne one-nil

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A fairly general question, but one I've not been able to answer myself, despite reading about quite a bit.

I've decided that my Olympus E400 is showing its age for its day-to-day work (landscape photography) and isn't really suited at all to astrophotography. So, I'm going to treat myself to an upgrade.

It seems pretty clear that Canon is the way to go, but which Canon would you go for? I imagine even the base model (1100D) would be a huge upgrade on my E400, and I'd be delighted to go with that if it would give me excellent results as a family camera, specialist landscape camera and astrophotography camera. However, I reckon if I can afford to, then one of the mid-range cameras might be worth the money. I'm quite tempted by this deal at Jessops but perhaps the 550D is a better long-term bet?

I'd be using the camera on an Astrotrac mount, and mostly with fairly wide-angle star fields, although I would want to use it in conjunction with my TV85 (and perhaps a focal reducer) too.

Any advice? The choice becomes a bit bewlidering and I don't want to go down the more pixels the better route necessarily!

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osbourne one-nil

osbourne one-nil

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Now, I read somewhere, and I think it was Cloudy Nights, that the 1100D would be far better than the 500D as, I think, it incorporates different processing stuff and avoids amp-glow. I think anyway.

This is so confusing. I think even the 1100D would blow my Olympus out of the water, and I wonder if the improvement I'd get from a 550D would only be noticeable side-by-side?

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Gina

Gina

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The 1100D is brilliant IMO. No noticeable amp glow and the noise level seems very low. A lot lower than my Sony A200 - I haven't got access to other Canon models of DSLR.

Here are a couple of pics derived from a dark image from the 1100D with 10 minutes exposure at ISO 1600. This was taken at room temperature so the noise should be lower when used outdoors at near zero C. I'll repeat the test out in my obsy later after allowing time for the camera to cool down.

First is full frame scaled and the second a section from the centre of the image at full resolution and cropped down.

dark-10m-1600.jpg

dark-10m-1600-1.jpg

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Williams

Williams

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Hehe, yeah thanks that help me too! It's always best to sit on an idea and talk to people with experiance, I have noticed some folk who baught expensive cams then come here to ask what to do with it or what it's good for, I never really understand that mentality :D

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Karlos

Karlos

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I have the 550D and have been able to push it upto ISO 1600 in LP'd skies without capturing too much noise, and photography in low light is just exceptional. I think the biggest advantage is the larger images you are able to capture when compared to the 1100D. I'm sure they can both produce fine astrophotos, I'm sure there might be someone on here who has owned both cameras and could give you a proper comparison.

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Karlos

Karlos

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I know I'd never regret getting the higher specified model. But there's the 600D too.

Urgh!

I know what you mean :D

The only way I could bite the bullet is thinking about how futureproof the camera will be and also aiming for midrange market as you tend to find the newest technologies offer a slight edge over the top end but at (what I call..) a unjustifiable price.

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Gina

Gina

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Ah yes the 550D and 600D have more pixels though the same size sensor as the 1100D resulting in slightly smaller pixels. I wonder if the sensitivity is down a bit as a result.

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reddoss

reddoss

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I have the 550D and have been able to push it upto ISO 1600 in LP'd skies without capturing too much noise, and photography in low light is just exceptional. I think the biggest advantage is the larger images you are able to capture when compared to the 1100D. I'm sure they can both produce fine astrophotos, I'm sure there might be someone on here who has owned both cameras and could give you a proper comparison.

I am thinking of upgrading from a 450D to a 550D. Does it produce better astro images ie higher sensitivity than the 450 or 1100? I may be wrong but I thought the 1100D and 550D have near enough the same size sensor, so how can the 550D capture larger images? Or do you mean that at 18 MPixels it has a higher resolution?

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Gina

Gina

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Here is the image from the 1100D taken outdoors at around 2C. Actually 11.5mins (683 sec) at ISO 1600 (I was a bit late in going out and closing the shutter :D)

!. Scaled full frame. 2. Cropped full resolution.

dark-11m-1600-cold.jpg

dark-11m-1600-cold-1.jpg

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dark knight

dark knight

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I too have been looking into this for some considerable time, getting by using an unmodded Nikon D80, which does produce some ok images, however I thought it time to go to the next level and Canon has some amazing support in the way of astro imaging add ons which quite frankly are just not available for other DSLR manufacturers. Anyhow I just off the phone to Andy Ellis at Astronomiser and his advice to me was go for the 550D with filter removed.

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RogerTheDodger

RogerTheDodger

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Nikon process the raw image in camera before d/load, which can compromise the image quality.... having said that, I've seen some great images done with a Nikon :D

Note that the Canon 1100d does not have mirror lock, but I have just found that there is a work-around in BackyardEOS that works.

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