Nikon D3100

[clunsey73]

Anyone using one and how are they finding it. I've played around with mine a bit but I think I need to optimize the settings - some lunar pics were pretty disappointing but I'm not sure where I am going wrong. The video actually turned out nicely - but I thought the pics should have been much sharper, they were worse than the vids! Liveview I thought would be helpful but to be honest unless its pointing at the very brightest stars it doesn't even show up on the LCD viewer - I have to do all my focusing with bright stars - then move take a pic and see what I have - then try to move blindly again if I want any specific objects. Just curious to hear what others are finding the D3100 like.

[martymac]

i have a D5000, and my experience has been the same (ie: difficulty acheiving focus properly), so i decided to buy a 2nd hand canon eos350D, which is only 6MP, but can be used in conjunction with backyard eos which makes it much easier to focus. http://www.backyardeos.com/

theres a guy on here who has his own blog http://astrocasto.blogspot.co.uk/ he explains the advantages pretty well.

it does mean using a laptop full time though.

i managed to get my canon for £72, with a grip so it can run 2 batteries, and i may just sell the lens it came with which is probably worth £40 on its own.

i attach mine to a scope, but the principles are the same, the scope just acts like a giant lens.

[edjrgibbs]

I bought a D3100 as my imaging camera a little while ago. I find it pretty good. You need a bahtinov mask but you can get good focus with liveview zoom. I normally set ISO to 1600 and white balance to auto.

[clunsey73]

OKay - intrigued by the mask - had to google it. I also suspect I had vibration - I forgot that with the narrow FOV the vibration will be hugely magnified - I expected a shutter speed of 1/100th second would have countered that but I guess it did not. I'll try again with faster shutter speeds see the effect. I also just read your post again - liveview zoom - I didn't realize - there is a digital zoom with lioveview I presume? I'll take a look now!

[Rihard]

Anyone using one and how are they finding it. I've played around with mine a bit but I think I need to optimize the settings - some lunar pics were pretty disappointing but I'm not sure where I am going wrong. The video actually turned out nicely - but I thought the pics should have been much sharper, they were worse than the vids! Liveview I thought would be helpful but to be honest unless its pointing at the very brightest stars it doesn't even show up on the LCD viewer - I have to do all my focusing with bright stars - then move take a pic and see what I have - then try to move blindly again if I want any specific objects. Just curious to hear what others are finding the D3100 like.

Hi, I owned a D3100 (now replaced by a D7000) and the viewfinder / liveview weren't the best to be honest, most of the pics I was taking with it were pretty soft and lacking of saturation, while the videos looked nice indeed. I was able to get better images setting a much higher ISO and faster shutter speed, you might have to play with it to find the ideal settings. If you have any tracking motors, you could try taking a few videos, then convert them from MOV to AVI and stack them.