Camera/Lens advice

[nmoore6]

Hello all, I am new to this site and looking for some advice on astrophotography. I have been doing astronomy for a little while now and I think I'm ready to take the plunge and try some imaging.

I have been looking at a Canon Rebel T5 bundle that includes a 75-300mm lens at f/4-f/5.6 and a 18-55mm lens at f/3.5-f/5.6 (I want to do planetary and DSO imaging). I know the focal lengths arent great, but I DO have access to a good equatorial mount, so I'm not sure if faster lenses are necessary.

So, with a good EQ mount, would this bundle be good enough for some decent pictures of planets and DSOs? Is the T5 good with a tracking mount, but not with these lenses? Or should I ditch this whole idea and get a completely different setup?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks guys!

[wxsatuser]

It depends what you regard as decent images.

If starting out and your not to picky and this is your budget limit, go for it.

If you can stretch your budget I would go for prime lenses like the Nifty Fifty, EF 200mm L or Sigma 105mm

Obviously these lenses will be pretty useless for planets.

The camera should be fine but the lenses will be a bit so so for both types of imaging.

The focal lengths are bit short for planetary, except may be ok with the moon.

For dso they are not ideal lenses but with some experimenting you could get some nice widefield images.

The unmodded camera will not pickup the red nebulae easily and if you have light polution you may need a filter.

[iksose7]

I agree, should be looking at a prime lens really. The standard 18-55mm will do for nightscapes though. I started with a Canon 1100D and 75-300mm, i'll posta couple of the results i got below. Although i was happy with them at the time as they were my very first DSOs, i wanted a faster lens that produced better quality stars so ended up selling the 75-300mm and buying a EF200L which i still have today.

What EQ mount do you have? Do you have a budget? Depending on what it is you may be able to pick up a second hand scope which would preform better if you want to get into imaging nebula ect.

[RichM63]

See sig'. I am currently saving for a faster prime L series lens, but I started my DSLR journey with exactly the same kit. The learning process is what takes most time if you are not an expert with processing type software. (which I am not).

One thing you will want to add into the bundle straight away, is at least a remote shutter release or ideally an intervalometer release or timer battery grip. Being tied to a laptop and controlling from it can become tiring.

Both my cameras are timer gripped, but I also have a Canon cable release with a 'bulb' mode which is almost permanently attached to whatever is on the tripod. Makes a huge difference with shake.

The 50mm MKII 1.8 lens can be had for reasonable cost and is handy for starting with wide field Milky Ways etc.

Whatever camera you go for, also factor in large capacity memory cards, shooting in RAW eats memory.

Welcome to the forum BTW.

[mrblue]

anyway... imho, why spend lots and lots of money buying a 5d, some very expensive L lenses, filters, guide scope, maybe a ccd camera and so on? start with that and make practice... it may turn out that you don't like that kind of things and you spent lots of money that you could have invested in better scope or eyepieces!

you will have time to improve the quality of your equipment in the future...

[Xplode]

If i were you i would buy a used camera housing and get some older Asahi Pentax M42 prime lenses, many of them are very good and the price is low. They will be much better than any cheap Canon zoom lens.

[nmoore6]

Guys, thanks for all the advice! I am not looking to take perfectly detailed pictures, or spend crazy money right away. I want to take some decent pictures to show my friends and family...if I can get anywhere close to the pictures that ikose7 posted, thats more than enough. The mount that my friend has is an iOpton, not sure of the exact model but I know he invested a lot of money in it, upwards of 800 or 900 dollars, so I dont think that will be an issue. So I guess my next question is: would this Canon bundle on that mount produce "okay" images?