Budget Canon lens suitable for Astrophotography

[Chris]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding used budget Canon Lenses which are usuable for DSO imaging?

 

I've been blinkering the imaging side of astronomy for the last 18 months or so, but gave in yesterday when I saw a modded Canon 350D for sale for next to nothing. I just couldn't turn it down even though I really shouldn't be spending

I'm quite excited about the prospect of tinkering with imaging again, although literally all I have is the pending camera, my old T-ring and programmable timer, and erm? that's it! I can't dig out enough Blu rays to sell to buy an apo, so was thinking about a cheap second hand lens. Also this would have a shorter focal length so I might get away with knocking something really rudimentary together when it comes to tracking?

It's only when I look at the Canon lenses on ebay I realise I don't have that much of a clue? These are some of the following lenses I've seen:

-Tamron 70-300mm macro Canon fit

-Canon EF 80-200mm MKII F4.5-5.6 Zoom Lens for EOS SLR's

-Sigma 28-200mm 3.5-5.6 AF DL Aspheric IF Zoom Lens Fro Canon EOS EF Film SLR (I think this might work manually with a DLSR?)

-Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 II IS Lens

Any thoughts on the above, or other suitable lenses for DSO imaging much appreciated  

 

p.s. Budget wise - hoping to spend less than £50

Many Thanks. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

[RichM63]

The experts will come along shortly but NOT ONE of the lenses in your list is really suitable for AP. Zoom lenses are simply not the way to go. What you want is a fixed length 'Prime' lens.

Thus from a budget aspect a fully manual old M42 lens + adapter could easily be the way to go. (if you can find a Cold War Russian lens, keep it to yourself until you have it in your hands.  )

IIRC check out Happy-Kat (brain fade on forum name) but I'm sure he is using some old Takumar/Pentax lenses.

Best, Rich

[hobsey]

Yep, Rich beat me to it as I was typing.

Classic prime lenses would be better than a cheaper modern zoom lens.

You can pick up a classic 135mm or 200mm 2.8 for as little as 15 pound [sorry, my shift keys have packed up and can't get the pound symbol to work]

Edited February 2, 2016 by hobsey

[happy-kat]

I very much like my old Takumar 50mm f2. If you have a static mount then you want the widest field of view. The cheapest will I think be 50mm around f2. Wider primes might be more, I also have a 28mm crosima lens but it wasn't good for astro.

A great read by a fellow member. There is a link next but I can't see it but it should be there.

Edited February 2, 2016 by happy-kat
used PC to tidy this post up

[happy-kat]

Fixed the link.

Read here

135mm is cheap but I find too long if a static mount.

Also the member is Knight of Dark Skies, does excellent stuff and did the read link above.

Edited February 2, 2016 by happy-kat

[Daniel-K]

id be interested in what lenses where good aswell. im off to france in october so hoping to capture some nice images whilst there with my 1200D

[Cozzy]

For those of us who are on 'She who must be obeyed' budget. Pentacon 50mm F1.8 £15 -£30 dependent on condition, the same'ish for the 50mm F1.8 Takumar up about £40. 

If any one can get me a good condition 135mm f2.5 Takumar for £15 I'll take 6, they are actually going for about £70 - £100+, however you can pick up the 135mm F3.5 Takumar in first class condition as I did for £45 

some other handy ones may be the Helios 135mm, Pentacon 135mm for the same as or just a bit more than the Takumars. HTHs a bit.

 

Tim 

[happy-kat]

I have a Helios 135mm circa 1980s. Takes surprisingly good daytime images, use it at motorsport events, but it suffers from too much CA for my liking at night and also although it is a f2.8 iot is not hugely star sensitive.

[Chris]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Fixed the link.

Read here

135mm is cheap but I find too long if a static mount.

Also the member is Knight of Dark Skies, does excellent stuff and did the read link above.

Cheers for the link, it's really good! I feel like I've learnt a bit obout AP with lenses just by spending 5-10 mintues reading it  

I might be best buying a fast 50mm Prime lens by the sounds of it, at least until I've got some kind of tracking sorted.

The only worry is that the modded camera I'm buying can't have been shimmed or filter replaced modded for the money I've paid, so I do need to be careful that any lens I buy which requires and adaptor reaches infinity focus. With this is mind I'll check the price of EOS prime lenses, but may just risk an M42 fitting and make sure I get an adaptor that specifies infinity focus to reduce the risk.

 

[Chris]

49 minutes ago, Cozzy said:

For those of us who are on 'She who must be obeyed' budget. Pentacon 50mm F1.8 £15 -£30 dependent on condition, the same'ish for the 50mm F1.8 Takumar up about £40. 

If any one can get me a good condition 135mm f2.5 Takumar for £15 I'll take 6, they are actually going for about £70 - £100+, however you can pick up the 135mm F3.5 Takumar in first class condition as I did for £45 

some other handy ones may be the Helios 135mm, Pentacon 135mm for the same as or just a bit more than the Takumars. HTHs a bit.

 

Tim 

Cheers Tim, I'll check them out

And I'm definately on the SWMBO budget with a pending house move

[Chris]

42 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I have a Helios 135mm circa 1980s. Takes surprisingly good daytime images, use it at motorsport events, but it suffers from too much CA for my liking at night and also although it is a f2.8 iot is not hugely star sensitive.

Sounds like you can't just rely on the F ratio with lenses when it comes to astro, so it's really good to have some brands to check out. I'm back on Ebay once the kids are in bed to see what I can find armed with all this info

[happy-kat]

sorry the member is Knight of Clear Skies.

this is th adpator I have two of and reach infitinty on my old lenses.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001CX1HZ6/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item?tag=stargloung-21

There is more than one good article on that site I linked too, also one on using the kit lens.

Edited February 2, 2016 by happy-kat
typo

[Chris]

4 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

sorry the member is Knight of Clear Skies.

this is th adpator I have two of and rach infitinty on my old lenses.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001CX1HZ6/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item?tag=stargloung-21

Thanks - book marked

p.s I thought you must have meant Knight of clear skies 

[Joseki]

44 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

Cheers for the link, it's really good! I feel like I've learnt a bit obout AP with lenses just by spending 5-10 mintues reading it  

I might be best buying a fast 50mm Prime lens by the sounds of it, at least until I've got some kind of tracking sorted.

The only worry is that the modded camera I'm buying can't have been shimmed or filter replaced modded for the money I've paid, so I do need to be careful that any lens I buy which requires and adaptor reaches infinity focus. With this is mind I'll check the price of EOS prime lenses, but may just risk an M42 fitting and make sure I get an adaptor that specifies infinity focus to reduce the risk.

 

I just bought the Canon 50mm f1.8 stm prime, £95 (new).  Used 50mm f1.8 II lens (previous model, same optics I believe) sell for around £50 on ebay.  I considered an old M42 lens but the Canon has the benefit of easiest day time use which I also want to use it for.  The Canon 70-200 F4 L lens is apparently good for astro but pricey.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Joseki

[happy-kat]

I also like this site for a look and read.

http://www.budgetastro.net/

[Leveye]

Takumars are a real steal. 50mm-135mm-200mm-300mm That or spend a bit and get an early 80's Nikkor ED 180mm . Great astro lens! Here's one of comet Catalina using it on a standard tripod doing only 6 second shots at ISO 6k

Great color still.

 

Edited February 3, 2016 by Leveye

[Astrosurf]

This is a great thread as I'm looking for a wide-angle lens.

As for the tracking, have you looked into a barn door set-up? http://education.jlab.org/tracker/

Alexxx

[Chris]

3 hours ago, Astrosurf said:

This is a great thread as I'm looking for a wide-angle lens.

As for the tracking, have you looked into a barn door set-up? http://education.jlab.org/tracker/

Alexxx

Thanks for the link Alex  Yes, the thought had crossed my mind. I may go down this route if I decide not to sell any more stuff. If I can dig out more stuff to sell I might fund an EQ3 head and motor, or even a Star Adventurer. 

[Chris]

Well, I've hit the button on a vintage Super Takumar 50mm F2 which has been pre converted to an EOS EF-S fitting buy what looks like an Ebay shop. Cost £28.99 plus fiver postage

Thanks for all the help, and I'll report back

 

 

 

[Andy Mitchell]

Is that the 55mm f2? Think the M42 Takumars (e.g. Super Takumar) only did 50mm in f1.4.

The 55mm in f1.8/f2.0 is generally well regarded by photographers. They are supposed to use identical glass inside, the f2.0 has an extra bit of metal to restrict the max aperture so they could get economy of scale on production. The f2.0 was a common kit lens, and the f1.8 was sold as more of a premium lens.

I recently got the Super Multi Coated (f1.8) version and it works well, wide open star shapes are not great, but then I suspect they wont be on any lens that fast. Step down a few stops and they look great, not experimented enough to know what's optimal yet but the F3.3ish stop works well on my DSLR (APS sized sensor). Looking forward to a chance to try it on the CCD camera, discovered I needed a bit of extension tube I didn't own last time the skies were clear and life aligned free time and energy.

Assuming you get a decent copy, you will be very happy with it.

[Chris]

Thanks Andy  I'm looking forward to experimenting with different F-stops, ISO, and exposures on different objects. I'll probably start on Orion and see if I can pick up Barnards Loop? Might need tracking sorted for that though as I don' think a 10 second exposures will cut it.

[dph1nm]

The standard Canon plastic 18-55 f3.5 kit lens is actually quite good at the wider end! If your aren't tracking then your really need something wider than 50mm in my opinion.

NigelM

[dph1nm]

I should also say that I use the kit 55-250 zoom (when tracking). I am quite happy with it, but it isn't perfect by a long way.

I have some pictures with the 18-55 here

and some with the 55-250 here

NIgelM

Edited February 3, 2016 by dph1nm

[Chris]

19 minutes ago, dph1nm said:

The standard Canon plastic 18-55 f3.5 kit lens is actually quite good at the wider end! If your aren't tracking then your really need something wider than 50mm in my opinion.

NigelM

Hi Nigel, I'm hoping to sort out some kind of basic tracking in the near future  Not entirely sure what yet, but's it's going to be cheap and cheerful  I thought on balance a 50mm would be a good place to start with it having fast optics and low demad on tracking. I did initially think off a 200mm which seemed short at first as historically I'm used to imaging at longer focal length with scope. 

[Chris]

25 minutes ago, dph1nm said:

I should also say that I use the kit 55-250 zoom (when tracking). I am quite happy with it, but it isn't perfect by a long way.

I have some pictures with the 18-55 here

and some with the 55-250 here

NIgelM

Lots of great pics there, really gives an idea of what can generally be done at different focal lengths  I can imaging collecting lenses can become another 'thing' to try and resist spending money on, although you seem to get alot for your money