Best lens for astrophotography with a Canon 400D? Any advice?

[{CP}-Brooker]

Hi

I got through my bonus and I m pretty close to pulling the trigger on a Canon Eos 400D. The range of lenses is bewildering and I have fairly limited funds. Can anyone share experience on the best lenses to consider that are suitable for wide field astrophotography. I guess I need a low F ratio...

Is the image stabilisation a good thing to have.

Looking for something that will be good on widefields, otherwise I ll use the camera at prime focus on my C8. I m looking to mount the camera piggy back on my Nexstar8SE for some short exposure wide field shots.

Budget for the lens is in the £200-300 range absolute tops and it needs to be a good all rounder.

Cheers

CP

[iancandler]

you cant beat a 28mm F2.8 or 50mm F 1.7, you may even be able to pick up both secondhand with your budget.

Ebay is definatly worth a look for that.

[FLO]

Ian's right, a short prime lens would be your best bet. If it were me I'd be looking for one of the earlier, less fashionable, designs with an arc-drive (not usm) motor from Canon's film-camera days as they tend to be cheap secondhand but very good optically.

[Robd]

re image stabilisation - not required. I have a Pentax K10D where the stabilisation is in the camera. The instructions are to turn off stabilisation when mounting the camera on a tripod.

Rob

[Stardust]

I've picked up a few old M42 fitting prime lenses which are very good.

Carl Ziess and Pentax are excellent. Think I've got a spare Pentax 135mm somewhere, anyway buy an adaptor and away you go.

DAve