Full Frame DSLR - recommended lens for AP?

[Notty]

I'm shortly to buy a Canon EOS 6D, not as a dedicated AP camera but mainly for terrestrial use.  However I thought it might be nice to have a play with for AP; not just as a OSC camera to stick to the front of my ED80 but I do love some of those wide field shots I see using a DSLR lens.  I'm probably going to get a 24-105 F4 zoom lens with it as it's main "earth" lens but i suspect this won't be much cop for the night sky.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  Thanks in advance, Andy

[happy-kat]

Do you have a budget in mind?

I like vintage lenses for AP as primes are good and you only need manual mode.

There's wide field like sub 20mm yet a 135mm lens is still considered wide field. If it is for use on a static tripod I'd go for 50mm or less this then get us back to budget. 

[Notty]

10 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Do you have a budget in mind?

I like vintage lenses for AP as primes are good and you only need manual mode.

There's wide field like sub 20mm yet a 135mm lens is still considered wide field. If it is for use on a static tripod I'd go for 50mm or less this then get us back to budget. 

Hey thanks for the reply, yes indeed there's a budget, since I'm spending extra to get a quality versatile general purpose lens there's not much left over. Would £300 or so get me anything worth shooting a full frame through?

[happy-kat]

There's a Samyang that gets mentioned a few times can't think if it is 14 or 16mm.  Will swallow your budget.

[happy-kat]

But then for under £30 lens and adaptor I very much like my vintage 50mm f2 lens circa 1964 that I use for wide field. It's heavy bit of glass!

[happy-kat]

 like to cheat and use ff lenses with a crop sensor dslr get little to no vignetting.

[Notty]

Thanks for all that.  Is there a particular minimum F ratio that I should be looking for for AP with these?  How about any specific issues regarding getting the best out of the full frame sensor?

[Owmuchonomy]

My experience shows that true macro lenses are a good bet.  They often provide a very good flat field.  For example, I used the Canon 60mm macro for the California nebula and M45 widefield shot you can find in my flickr link below.

[Stub Mandrel]

The prime lens photos that stand out from the crowd again and again all seem to be taken with decent 135mm lenses, often of considerable vintage.

They put even large DSOs in the context of a decent starfield, while still showing some detail in smaller ones like galaxies. They can be fast f2 or f3.5 and being relaitively short fl guiding isn't critical so you can get plenty of photons.

Optically, they seem to be at focal length sweet-spot where they can be used wide open without noticeable coma or objectionable CA (you can get UV bloat, I'm going to experiment with using a Skylight or UV filter to prevent this).

They are also relatively cheap!

[Alien 13]

Probably the very best astro lens at the moment is the Samyang 135 mm f/2, a good used lens is the Canon 70-200 mm f/4 L. 

Alan

[Notty]

That Samyang is even nearly in my price range! Reviews are very positive, thanks for the steer.

[Star Struck]

Are you going to buy a 6D mark 1 or are you waiting for the mark 2?

If you are going for a 6D mark 1, I reckon you would be better off looking for an excellent condition used 5D mark 3.

 

Tony

 

[happy-kat]

Question to ask is you have all the gear to AP HEQ5 and ED80 and modded 1100d. So when will your new camera be used and with this new lens, because if it is for when out and about or holiday improntu AP then you will most likely not have your tracking EQ mount so you wont want a long lens but probably a short lens that gives you the most seconds before star trailing for fuller wide field images.

Just a thought.

[wxsatuser]

45 minutes ago, Notty said:

That Samyang is even nearly in my price range! Reviews are very positive, thanks for the steer.

This is most likely the best lens ever for AP

It easily runs wide open on crop sensors and more than likely will do well on FF.

I bought one recently to run on my Atik 383 and it's a real photon hover.

[gorann]

Yes, from all what I have read and the images I have seen, the Samyang 135 mm f/2 is the best you can get (also sold under the name Rokinon).  I hope I am right since I have just bought one but weather have stopped me from using it so far.

[Space Hopper]

Andy : when i brought my 6D i opted for the 16-35 F4 as my general walk round lens, with the idea of doing some wide field astro with it too.

Its a really nice lens ; i've been impressed with it.

 

Link here to a useful site 

http://www.lonelyspeck.com/astrophotography-101