Canon 6D or nikon d600/610?

[GTom]

After reading the Sony star eater story I abandoned the brand and looking elsewhere. I used to be a nikonian/touched canon bodies only a handful of times but that should not bias my decision for the future.

Any arguments for choosing one or the other? In this quick review they came up more or less even. I would like to monochrome-mod the camera and add a cold-finger-type cooling as well. And I know, there are cheaper mono  astrocameras, like the asi1600mm-c arund, but that tiny creature covers only 1/4 of the frame of the 6D/D610. Full Frame CCD's are way too expensive for my budget except a few KAI-11002 based 2nd hand unit, but that piece of hardware has so low QE (H-a: 30%) and so high noise, that a microlens-stripped DSLR might fare better... (and still significantly cheaper)

From my side:

For canon:

- I have a sigma ART 1.4/20 for EOS lens, currently used for videography but could make a great timelapser.
- Canon has a somewhat shorter flange distance - in case I have space issues, abovementioned review quotes vignetting, due to the smaller throat diameter (nikon: 44, canon 54mm) - this is a topic in my case, I plan to use a Riccardi reducer on my apo scope.
-Canon is broadly supported by the astrophoto community, has magic lantern firmware mods (whatever that means for astro...), etc.

For nikon:

-I do have and will keep my astro-modded D5100 for the time being. This means two sets of adapters.

[Alien 13]

Canon over Nikon every time, better AP support, compatibility with older M42 lenses and just better... runs for cover 

Alan

[GTom]

Thanks Alan, I am leaning towards the canon too. Many "astro converters" haven't even heard about nikon  (key project for me would be the monochrome modding, I've heard that canon's give up their Bayers a lot easier than nikons).

[Dr_Ju_ju]

+1 for the Canon's

[StuartJPP]

I am a Canon man, mainly because that is what I shoot during the day and I have all the bits and bobs for the system.

I do like the ISOlessness (made up word) of the more recent Nikons. But overall I believe that it is 80% effort and 20% kit....

Buying something like PixInsight and learning to process images better is a much cheaper investment than any kit...of course if you are excellent at processing then getting better kit is the only way at improving other than going to darker sites or exposing for much longer.

I wouldn't fancy mono modifying a Canon 6D...replacing the filter with a Baader one was bad enough...scraping the Bayer layer off just doesn't appeal to me on a (circa) £800 camera. Perhaps in 5 years time when I have got some use out of it...if it is worth it by then as there will no doubt be better options available by then.

[GTom]

Actually I don't know if the iso invariance bears any meaning for astrophotography. Of course one could push the subs, but taking the shots is not a race that someone would forget to set iso1600 or whatever the sweet spot is :D.

The IR blocking filter will go on the first day when I receive the camera, but I am seriously interested in the mono conversion. Apparently both H-a and O-III sensitivity can be doubled, which is a great thing (one has to compare 2:2 binned mono vs Bayered RGB results). I know, it's a steep learning curve, but I am ready to learn the mod, of course not by destroying tens of 6D's but hopefully <10 el-cheapo sensors from fleabay.