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What DSLR to buy for my first time.

scottphillips

By scottphillips
in Discussions - Cameras

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scottphillips

scottphillips

Posted
Posted

hey guys, i am looking to buy a DSLR to push on with my Astrophotograpy !! 

I have only got a budget of up to £150 so am not sure what the best DSLR is that will enable the best use for shots of lunar and planetary objects and also some deep sky objects. 

What would be the best DLSR for this price range please :)

Thanks

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Knight of Clear Skies

Knight of Clear Skies

Posted
Posted

You probably want a Canon, they are a bit friendlier for astrophotography. There are 2nd hand options within your budget, ideally you want something with live focus to find infinity more easily. There are a selection of pictures taken I've taken with an 1100D and a modded 100D in this thread, both from fixed tripod and a tracking mount.

Hope that is some help.

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stoffe

stoffe

Posted
Posted

I do not know what exactly Canon are that are more friendlier compared to a Sony, Pentax or a Nikon camera? I got a Nikon D600 full sensor camera and I am very satisfied with that and it works with a few astrophotography programs as well. Maybe a Pentax camera would be quite nice? A modified Canon works also very well.

Here is a DSLR camera sensor comparison link.

http://sensorgen.info/

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Andy Mitchell

Andy Mitchell

Posted
Posted

Maybe a Pentax camera would be quite nice?

I own a Pentax K-X and do use it for astrophotography, but... Canon and nikon have a lot more support for astrophotography, e.g.

* Better software for shooting with the camera tethered to a laptop. Best I could find for my old Pentax was pktether and its fairly basic.

* Try buying an off the shelf M48 to pentax camera adapter for certain popular coma reducers/field flateners.

* Seems to be more knowledge and solutions out there if you want to modify the cameras filtering for astro work.

Not enough to make me ditch a perfectly good camera along with lots of lenses etc, but if I was buying specifically for astrophotography I would probably go for canon or nikon.

If anyone has any useful tips for using Pentax for astrophotography please share :)

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Knight of Clear Skies

Knight of Clear Skies

Posted
Posted

I'm struggling to remember or find the details, but I believe there is a slight issue with Nikons for astrophotography. Something to do with noise reduction being applied to the Nikon RAW files which can't be turned off, which causes problems with darks. Not 100% sure I've got that right.

There is also better software available for controlling Canon's from a laptop, although Backyard Nikon is currently in beta.

Edit - Found this slide in this .pdf file:

"Most DSLR astrophotographers use Canon cameras.

Canon releases the details of the camera’s software.

This allows the development of third party software,

designed specifically for astrophotography.

Nikon does not create a truly raw image

A simple median blurring filter is always applied...

removing many stars, as they are seen as noise.

This prohibits precise image calibration."

Reading a few threads, people are also saying it's easier to replace the IR filter in Canon bodies for better Ha response.

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Dubhar

Dubhar

Posted
Posted

I'm struggling to remember or find the details, but I believe there is a slight issue with Nikons for astrophotography. Something to do with noise reduction being applied to the Nikon RAW files which can't be turned off, which causes problems with darks. Not 100% sure I've got that right.

There is also better software available for controlling Canon's from a laptop, although Backyard Nikon is currently in beta.

[...]

I've not noticed this yet, though im not sure how to test it properly. On the other side of things, cannon have an AA filter applied that cant be turned off, modern nikons don't use an AA filter and have better low light performance overall compared to canon.

I havent been able to find reliable information (from nikon, or actual testing) about noise reduction being applied on nikon raw files, at least none in the last few years. Im not sure how negitivly it affects images if it does still exist or if its negated by the improved sensors over canons to not be a problem.

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Tinker1947

Tinker1947

Posted
Posted

I have read mentioned that if getting an older second hand Canon to chose one that has live view capability.

I think it was from the 450d that liveview was added.

The 1000d does not have liveview I don't think.

The 1100D has a moveable liveview screen, makes it so much easier then getting on your knees to view the screen....:)

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carastro

carastro

Posted
Posted

As the OP has a limited budget, a newer version of the Nikon does not seem feasible.  

I have never used anything but a Canon (450D) but heard lots of comments about it being the best supported, certainly within your budget.  

No-one seems to have mentioned that a DSLR is probably not the best tool for planets as they will be too small in the FOV.

Carole 

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stoffe

stoffe

Posted
Posted

I'm struggling to remember or find the details, but I believe there is a slight issue with Nikons for astrophotography. Something to do with noise reduction being applied to the Nikon RAW files which can't be turned off, which causes problems with darks. Not 100% sure I've got that right.

There is also better software available for controlling Canon's from a laptop, although Backyard Nikon is currently in beta.

Edit - Found this slide in this .pdf file:

"Most DSLR astrophotographers use Canon cameras.

Canon releases the details of the camera’s software.

This allows the development of third party software,

designed specifically for astrophotography.

Nikon does not create a truly raw image

A simple median blurring filter is always applied...

removing many stars, as they are seen as noise.

This prohibits precise image calibration."

Reading a few threads, people are also saying it's easier to replace the IR filter in Canon bodies for better Ha response.

The newer Nikon models do save their raw data in a lossy compressed raw file, like my own D600. I can choose to save my image files as compressed lossless in a menu. Btw, a truly raw image can not be done with any DSLR, but the nearest truly raw that I know is a hack from nikonhacker.com which is very interesting.

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Vox45

Vox45

Posted
Posted

A bit late but I'm adding my 2 cents.

I bought a second-hand Canon 1000D from eBay (shutter count at 1200!!) for 146£

Nice thing about the 1000D is that the pixels are bigger than the 1100D (so less resolution but better sensitivity) I'm no expert but this is what I gathered from my research... Maybe some expert can confirm this... Some say it is a myth.

For me the deciding factor was that it works nice with Backyard OES wich is a must have ;) ... and it DOES have liveview

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