Which option advise

[libraryman]

I'm not sure which choice to make to get a modified camera!

I have a good canon 350D that i could use but should i get a newer model 1100D instead and modify that?

The 350D has a good reputaion but the newer 1100D has better noise and amp glow performance, is it worth me paying out for another camera?

Will Darks and flats really clear the amp glow issues and match the later cameras performance

I'm sure it will be cheaper to modify my own camera and i can put the funds to somthing else

what would you do?

Ray

[libraryman]

No replies to this question so i decided to modify my old 350D, i'm well chuffed, fired up 1st time and nice pink photo's with the Baader IR filter

Ray

[davies07]

Well done. It takes a bit of courage to take your camera to bits to do the mod.

Yes, the darks should really help reduce noise on the image. Flats will help remove the effects of dust shadows (bunnies) and vignetting. Now you'll have to work out how to capture these images between the sky getting dark enough and the sun coming up - that's about 3 hours at the moment.

I've shot some of my dark frames the following day with the camera in the fridge ..

Good luck.

[ollypenrice]

Darks are tricky with a DSLR. They need to be shot at the same temperature as the lights or they can do more harm than good. I'd try to note the ambient temp during the imaging run and duplicate it if possible for shooting the darks. Also take at least a dozen darks or, again, you risk doing more harm than good.

PixInsight has a couple of superb tools to improve the background, which can be noisy in DSLR images. Background Neutralization and Dynamic Background Extraction.

Olly

[Jessun]

Spot on advice there. Darks are a pain in the back side. Almost more tricky than flats to get right with a DSLR. With a CCD it seems flats win hands down in the what's-the-most-annoying-and-tricky-calibration-frame competition.

With a DSLR in my experience dithering is of huge importance. If you can't dither for some reason, just kick the tripod every half an hour!

But I take my hat off for doing the mod! I never found the courage to do that on my 600D.

Good luck with the 'new' camera!

[sgazer]

I'm sure I read the noise performance of the 350d was much better than modern 'high MP' cameras and its amp glow was much reduced over the 300d. Darks will get rid of the rest, just do a few at the end of the session when you are packing up the other stuff and having a cuppa. The actual temperature of the sensor itself won't vary hugely with a couple of degress external temperature as it's all pretty well wrapped up with other camera parts and electronics. I've found that anything within 5 degrees works well.

Flats are easy, white T-shirt over the end, point it at anything evenly lit, white wall, blue sky (harder) and move it around between each exposure to cancel out any dirty patches!