Camera

[Cheeky samsam]

Hi.. Can someone help me please.. I want to invest in a camera to take photos of the moon and planets ect, I've just seen one on amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-300D-Digital-Camera-EF18-55mm/dp/B0000C9VZN/ref=sr_1_58?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1362686124&sr=1-58

Could someone please take a look and tell me if it would be worth getting.. Or recommend any other that would be a good start out camera

thanks

[stubbadub]

I would try a modded xbox cam first. Can get them fro around £5.

[Kropster]

Canons are good. That price is cheap. Get that AND an X-Box cam!

[Steep]

It's a good price for that camera though it's a few years old now (it was my first digital slr) and has no live view to check focus which will be a problem.

[brantuk]

Moon and planets are better imaged with a webcam - I don't know the Xbox one but a fair few people have taken to it in recent months. Or you could try get a Philips SPC900NC or SPC880 (flashed up to resemble the 900NC). They come up s/h from time to time but out of production now.

Save DSLR photography for deep sky objects. The 300D is now a very old model - one of the first used in AP. There's still a few useable 350D's around but a 1000D or 1100D is what I'd go for at least - much more useful - also get Making Every Photon Count by Steve Richards - long exposure imaging is a big learning curve and the book is a great intro to it. Hth

[Cheeky samsam]

Yeah I've been looking around on YouTube and here and stuff and webcams seem to be the best option for me at the minute to say I've only just started out at this :-)

Thank you

[Kropster]

I've always wondered... why webcams for planets? Is it the number of frames you can capture? Most DSLRs do movies too and have higher resolution.

As well as the Philips webcams, look out for Logitec Quickcam Pro 3000 .... that might crop up more often than the Philips.

[brantuk]

Of course you can use any camera for any object. But for planets you are looking at a bright and near object so short exposure webcams will allow you to collect many frames in a short period. This is important because the scope is looking through the atmosphere which makes planets appear to wobble or "boil".

But for a split second now and again the atmosphere appears to settle and you get a good stable image of the planet. This is easier to capture if you are running off hundreds of frames in a few seconds using a webcam. If lucky the webcam will capture several good frames in 5 or 6 mins. Registax will let you throw away the bad frames and align, stack and process the good ones.

With a dslr you're trying to capture faint light from galaxies, nebulae, clusters etc from very distant areas in the deep sky. So the shutter is held open for five or ten mins at a time just to get a single frame (or sub). It's really a question of choosing the right tool for the right job. Hth

[baggywrinkle]

I have an older Canon400D and it is great. I use it in RAW mode and you can have an automatic dark shot set up. I use it on a T ring directly mounted to my 6SE.

One thing you do need to do is go through the manual and have a good play in the daylight, then at night you will be able to find the settings you need more easily.

[ScottT]

Ive been looking fir a 450d or above on ebay, they seem really popular tho

[baggywrinkle]

The only downside of my Canon is no live view, so for focusing I use a mask and a 90 Deg viewer onto the normal viewer. The 90 Deg one has 1.25 and 2x magnification.