clunsey73 Posted August 17, 2013 Share Posted August 17, 2013 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martymac Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edjrgibbs Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clunsey73 Posted August 20, 2013 Author Share Posted August 20, 2013 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rihard Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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