The canon 550D club

[BS269]

Looks like I’m going to be a new member as I’ve got a canon 550D after finding a nice bargain! Hopefully be here next week... I expect it will be solely used for astrophotography; deep space, planetary, and wide field Milky Way shots. I have the kit lens and I am going to buy a 75-300mm zoom lens to start me out with deep space photography, and I want to get it modded. 

By the looks of what I’ve found, full spectrum mod is the best one, but then there is problems with using lenses with it. Is there any way to get around this? If not will just the IR removal work with lenses? If anyone has any other advice with this camera please let me know! 

if anyone has any images with this camera they are willing to share, then please put it in here!

Cheers!

[feverdreamer1]

Another 550D here!

I'm too a newbie in AP. I have some experience in photography and astronomy, but astrophotography is like learning a whole new subject. This forum will provide you very good information on any question you might have.

As for the modding part, I've not done mine yet, as I plan to use it for daylight photography too, but I'm sure someone will point you in the right direction. 

The only decent photo I've managed for the moment (between recent pandemic and clouds I  sadly haven't got much time to spare)is a wide field of the milky way at 18mm in a bortle 5 (closer to 4 than to 6):

The moon pic I attach is from a bortle 7 zone, that's why it's kinda washed out (I think, not really sure)

Any advice from more experienced users is much appreciated.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by feverdreamer1

[Snoani]

I don't own a 550D, I have a different Canon, however, I would personally check Astrobin if you want to see images.  Worked for me when picking a scope.  

Literally just Google 550D Astrobin and is will give a lot of results.  It'll give you a good idea about the type of images that you can take with the camera using different combinations of equipment.

I've have a quick look and it didn't take me long to find some nice images with a 70-300 Sigma lense.  

 

[BS269]

11 hours ago, feverdreamer1 said:

Another 550D here!

I'm too a newbie in AP. I have some experience in photography and astronomy, but astrophotography is like learning a whole new subject. This forum will provide you very good information on any question you might have.

As for the modding part, I've not done mine yet, as I plan to use it for daylight photography too, but I'm sure someone will point you in the right direction. 

The only decent photo I've managed for the moment (between recent pandemic and clouds I  sadly haven't got much time to spare)is a wide field of the milky way at 18mm in a bortle 5 (closer to 4 than to 6):

The moon pic I attach is from a bortle 7 zone, that's why it's kinda washed out (I think, not really sure)

Any advice from more experienced users is much appreciated.

 

 

Yeah it does seem to be a hell of a lot to learn, I’m trying to juggle starting out in visual, AP whilst saving up and preparing for what gear I’m going to get. I’m seriously obsessed with this website currently though so I’m constantly learning things, even if they aren’t relevant to what I need yet. 
 

that Milky Way shot is actually very useful for me, as I’m bortle 5, edging on 4, and was wondering what one of these images would look like. Is this one single image or a stacked one and post-processed? I Don’t really know what you mean by washed out but I think the moon pic looks great! 
 

cheers!

[BS269]

6 hours ago, Snoani said:

I don't own a 550D, I have a different Canon, however, I would personally check Astrobin if you want to see images.  Worked for me when picking a scope.  

Literally just Google 550D Astrobin and is will give a lot of results.  It'll give you a good idea about the type of images that you can take with the camera using different combinations of equipment.

I've have a quick look and it didn't take me long to find some nice images with a 70-300 Sigma lense.  

 

I’ve looked on there before but never for pics from a 550D, I was set on getting the 600D for a while. Hadn’t thought about looking in there for the 550!

cheers

[feverdreamer1]

8 hours ago, BS269 said:

Yeah it does seem to be a hell of a lot to learn, I’m trying to juggle starting out in visual, AP whilst saving up and preparing for what gear I’m going to get. I’m seriously obsessed with this website currently though so I’m constantly learning things, even if they aren’t relevant to what I need yet. 
 

that Milky Way shot is actually very useful for me, as I’m bortle 5, edging on 4, and was wondering what one of these images would look like. Is this one single image or a stacked one and post-processed? I Don’t really know what you mean by washed out but I think the moon pic looks great! 
 

cheers!

Visual will be extremely helpful when you get a gear for AP, it means spending less time on stellar maps or apps like Stellarium. Also, it's just really fun to picture something you know is there (but cannot see) and see it pop up in the camera. Simply extraordinary.

The image was a stack of about 10 images of 25 seconds each at f/3.5 and ISO 1600, I think. It was very lightly processed, but I plan on working on it again. 

Hope this helps,

Clear skies!

[prusling]

Hi, I've had a 550d for a number of years and been very pleased with it. It was dual astro/daylight modded byJuan Ferrios at cheapastrophotography so I've never had a problem with UV/IR bloat which can happen with a full spectrum mod without additional filtering.

I have used it with a Samyang 14mm, Canon 40mm pancake and 55-250mm zoom, and vintage Pentax Takumar 135mm and 200mm lenses with adaptors. I prefer prime (non-zoom) lenses as you don't need to worry about retaining the zoom position if you take flats later.  I've also used it with various scopes.

As you are probably aware, the 550d unusually has a 640x480 'movie crop' mode which uses 1:1 pixels from the central part of the sensor to give a magnified image for planets, etc.

My sensor developed a couple of lines across every image, which I believe is fairly common and known as "Canon banding", but I fix this by using Fitswork4 and Processing, Background Flatten, Lines to Equal Values.

Here is a Milky Way shot using the 14mm lens. This was on a tracker (iOptron SkyTracker) with around 40 1-minute subs at ISO800 plus darks.  You can get away without a tracker with short exposures on wide-angle lenses; there's a rule of thumb you can use.

I'm sure you will enjoy your 550d - let me know if you'd like any other info or example images.

Cheers, Peter

[BS269]

On 01/08/2020 at 08:20, feverdreamer1 said:

Visual will be extremely helpful when you get a gear for AP, it means spending less time on stellar maps or apps like Stellarium. Also, it's just really fun to picture something you know is there (but cannot see) and see it pop up in the camera. Simply extraordinary.

The image was a stack of about 10 images of 25 seconds each at f/3.5 and ISO 1600, I think. It was very lightly processed, but I plan on working on it again. 

Hope this helps,

Clear skies!

I ended up buy a 12” skywatcher GoTo Dobsonian only a couple days after ordering the camera. I think this will probably end up being my only visual Scope as by the sounds of it, they are by far the best visual scopes (except for bigger dobs ofc) so hopefully I’ll learn my way around the sky as I use that. 

The camera arrived on Monday, got it checked by a friend who’s a professional photographer for sensor scratches who doesn’t think there are any. It’s currently in a shop for a sensor clean and if that turns out okay with no revealed scratches then I’ve gotten very lucky! I got the camera, 18-55mm kit lens (autofocus doesn’t work but no problem for AP), camera bag, 3 batteries, 2 chargers and a lightweight tripod for £110. Touch wood everything goes well!

[BS269]

On 01/08/2020 at 14:29, prusling said:

Hi, I've had a 550d for a number of years and been very pleased with it. It was dual astro/daylight modded byJuan Ferrios at cheapastrophotography so I've never had a problem with UV/IR bloat which can happen with a full spectrum mod without additional filtering.

I have used it with a Samyang 14mm, Canon 40mm pancake and 55-250mm zoom, and vintage Pentax Takumar 135mm and 200mm lenses with adaptors. I prefer prime (non-zoom) lenses as you don't need to worry about retaining the zoom position if you take flats later.  I've also used it with various scopes.

As you are probably aware, the 550d unusually has a 640x480 'movie crop' mode which uses 1:1 pixels from the central part of the sensor to give a magnified image for planets, etc.

My sensor developed a couple of lines across every image, which I believe is fairly common and known as "Canon banding", but I fix this by using Fitswork4 and Processing, Background Flatten, Lines to Equal Values.

Here is a Milky Way shot using the 14mm lens. This was on a tracker (iOptron SkyTracker) with around 40 1-minute subs at ISO800 plus darks.  You can get away without a tracker with short exposures on wide-angle lenses; there's a rule of thumb you can use.

I'm sure you will enjoy your 550d - let me know if you'd like any other info or example images.

Cheers, Peter

How have you found the dual Astro/daylight mod? I would like the option of being able to use it for daytime, but it’s not the end of the world if not. It looked far too expensive for me initially, but if I just got the IR mod then in order to use it I’m thinking the addition of filter comes to roughly a similar price? I don’t know if I’d need to use a white balance filter for planetary?
 

do you have to use any filters for any photography purposes you do? Have you found any problems with this mod? Feel free to add more pictures as well I’d love to see them!

The capability for good planetary imaging as well is another thing that sold this scope for me. It’s something I’m very interested in. Also my photographer friend has convinced me to only use prime lenses, as they are generally faster aperture and much better quality. So atm my plan is to get the canon 50mm f1.8 and the Rokinon 14mm f2.8. Prime lenses at 200mm seem to be stupid money so instead I’m just going to buy some small Apo refractors instead. They seem to be cheaper, far better for AP and can use them as a telescope too! And I’m going to get either the star adventurer or the ioptron skyguider. 

[feverdreamer1]

3 hours ago, BS269 said:

I ended up buy a 12” skywatcher GoTo Dobsonian only a couple days after ordering the camera. I think this will probably end up being my only visual Scope as by the sounds of it, they are by far the best visual scopes (except for bigger dobs ofc) so hopefully I’ll learn my way around the sky as I use that. 

The camera arrived on Monday, got it checked by a friend who’s a professional photographer for sensor scratches who doesn’t think there are any. It’s currently in a shop for a sensor clean and if that turns out okay with no revealed scratches then I’ve gotten very lucky! I got the camera, 18-55mm kit lens (autofocus doesn’t work but no problem for AP), camera bag, 3 batteries, 2 chargers and a lightweight tripod for £110. Touch wood everything goes well!

Im guessing you dont own a tracker. You should first get a hold of shooting milky way/wide field before starting telephoto and nebulae/gaalxy shooting. It helps a lot to have some previous AP experience even if it is wide field before entering the telephoto area. If you're indeed going to get a tracker (I read that you're between the sw and the ioptron) I reccomend you get the sky watcher star adventurer, it's cheaper, and if you get the pro pack it comes with a counterweight kit as well as the wedge, only downside is that it's a bit bulkier than the iOptron, but its price is much more reasonable.

 

You're gonna love this hobby.

 

Clear skies and hope this helped!

[BS269]

1 hour ago, feverdreamer1 said:

Im guessing you dont own a tracker. You should first get a hold of shooting milky way/wide field before starting telephoto and nebulae/gaalxy shooting. It helps a lot to have some previous AP experience even if it is wide field before entering the telephoto area. If you're indeed going to get a tracker (I read that you're between the sw and the ioptron) I reccomend you get the sky watcher star adventurer, it's cheaper, and if you get the pro pack it comes with a counterweight kit as well as the wedge, only downside is that it's a bit bulkier than the iOptron, but its price is much more reasonable.

 

You're gonna love this hobby.

 

Clear skies and hope this helped!

No I don’t have a tracker yet.. I think I will go with the star adventurer one, and what you suggest is what I had in mind really. I’m going to give the kit lens a shot but I’ve heard they can give soft images. If I find that is the case then the plan was to get a Rokinon 14mm and canon 50mm for Milky Way and constellation-like shots. I may not need a tracker for this but I know it would help a lot. When I’m ready to upgrade, instead of getting a longer fl camera lens I was instead going to get something like the WO space cat or 60mm apo, so it’s small enough to still fit on the star adventurer. I really like the look of the space cat, seen some incredible images with it. And I’m pretty sure that would keep me occupied for some time! 

[prusling]

14 hours ago, BS269 said:

How have you found the dual Astro/daylight mod? I would like the option of being able to use it for daytime, but it’s not the end of the world if not. It looked far too expensive for me initially, but if I just got the IR mod then in order to use it I’m thinking the addition of filter comes to roughly a similar price? I don’t know if I’d need to use a white balance filter for planetary?
 

do you have to use any filters for any photography purposes you do? Have you found any problems with this mod? Feel free to add more pictures as well I’d love to see them!

The capability for good planetary imaging as well is another thing that sold this scope for me. It’s something I’m very interested in. Also my photographer friend has convinced me to only use prime lenses, as they are generally faster aperture and much better quality. So atm my plan is to get the canon 50mm f1.8 and the Rokinon 14mm f2.8. Prime lenses at 200mm seem to be stupid money so instead I’m just going to buy some small Apo refractors instead. They seem to be cheaper, far better for AP and can use them as a telescope too! And I’m going to get either the star adventurer or the ioptron skyguider. 

The dual astro/daylight mod works well - you enter a custom white balance and use Av mode. Not sure that a special white balance is needed for planetary but as you don't need long exposures you can shoot in Av mode and use one. It does help not requiring an external filter although I occasionally use a UHC filter to cut light pollution.

Great choices on the lenses - I have the latter (Samyang=Rokinon). At 200mm I'd recommend using vintage lenses with adaptors such as the Pentax Takumars - the quality is superb and you can pick them up at a reasonable price.  You can always get a small APO as well!

Here's another widefield shot, this time with the 40mm pancake.

[BS269]

I thought the dual Astro/daylight mod meant you didn’t have to use a custom white balance for daytime photography? I read the description on cheapastrophotography and that is what I gathered from it?

if not, then is there any difference between that and the IR filter removal mod? As you can do daytime photography with a custom white balance I believe. 
 

regardless, I think your pictures are amazing!! Given me much hope and excitement with this camera!!

[prusling]

The custom white balance is a once-off setting on the camera which is then applied to shots taken in Auto WB mode. You may be thinking of an adjustment to the WB in post processing each time which is unnecessary.

[BS269]

Ahh okay, thank you for the help! Can’t wait to get into it!