Canon Live View for focusing

[steveinhants]

Hi,

So after finally finding out was has been wrong with my HEQ5 I set up last night on the very cold but clear Hants / Surrey border.  Polar aligned, and attached my Canon 5D mkii to my SW 80 ED DS Pro.  Balanced.  I only did a one star alignment and chose Betelgeuse.  Camera was tethered to my Mac with EOS Utility running.  I expected to see the star on my live view screen and could make out an exceptionally faint image, but nothing like I was expecting.  I could see it through the view finder though......

I've used the 5D loads for 'regular' photography but only used live view maybe twice over the years.  I'm not sure where I went wrong here so any suggestions welcome.

Steve

[DanInVa]

What are your settings (ISO, F Stop, exposure time, etc...)?

[ShrewView]

Sounds right to me, not that I have masses of experience at this, but on my 6D I find I have to up the iso when viewing through the live view. I tend to up it to 6400 or 12800 then use the digital zoom to magnify a good central star and then focus. Once i'm happy with focus I drop the iso back to the one I want to photograph at.

[Alien 13]

As above, in addition I normally set the shutter to 20 seconds (not bulb) to get a good live view image, zooming in with the X5 and X10 also seems to show more stars (provided the focus is good), Its also worth playing with the live view exposure simulation settings in the camera menu too. 

I have found that with my cameras that the actual live view screen on the camera gives far better and brighter views of stars than an image on a PC screen with the tethered connection.

Alan

[steveinhants]

My settings were: exp time 30 sec, ISO - tried all between 3200 and 6400.  I'm wondering if I didn't zoom enough....

[Alien 13]

15 minutes ago, steveinhants said:

My settings were: exp time 30 sec, ISO - tried all between 3200 and 6400.  I'm wondering if I didn't zoom enough....

Its possible, the zoom function on my cameras seems to not only reduce the area/FOV as you would expect but actually make invisible stars visible provided the focus is spot on (this is a useful tool in itself). As suggested earlier check the LV exp simulation settings,

I found a good method for trialing the best setup was to use my camera liveview in a dark room with perhaps a small shiny object as the subject and play around with all relevant setting options.

Alan