Canon 300D tips needed

[Cosmic Geoff]

I recently acquired a Canon 300D body to gain some experience of handling a DSLR.  I can attach it to at least one of my telescopes, and it was not hard to take pictures in daylight with it attached to a 102mm f5 achromat, or with a Canon zoom lens I bought used for it.

In the dark though it's a different story, when I can't see the controls, can't see if it's in focus and can't see if the exposure was right on the small built-in monitor.  I got a dawn picture of the Moon + Venus, handheld, using the zoom lens, which has a very grainy sky background. Using the 102mm achromat on a EQ-5 GoTo, I got an image of the Double Cluster, with very grainy background, and  M31, also with a very grainy sky background. The exposure was 4 secs IIRC.

I have ordered a used 5.6" video monitor to use with the camera which I am hoping wil help, assuming it works and Hermes don't lose it. 😦

Any tips?

[Dave2292]

try linking it to a laptop when you are outside and using backyard eos? 

[Mick J]

Not sure if APT or Backyard eos support the 300D, personally I would look for a cheap 450D as a starter. 

[Cosmic Geoff]

The 300D is one of the few Canon cameras not supported by Backyard Eos.  Canon's own software does not run on recent Windows OS.

IIRC, APT does not support the 300D either.

[Dave2292]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

The 300D is one of the few Canon cameras not supported by Backyard Eos.  Canon's own software does not run on recent Windows OS.

IIRC, APT does not support the 300D either.

My bad I didn't know that

[michael8554]

I started imaging way back with a 300D.

Unlike the newer Canons, you can't control the shutter via the USB, so APT and BYE won't work.

It doesn't have LiveView either, so framing and focusing is tricky.

With the 102 you'll have focus through the viewfinder, then take a series of exposures at highest ISO, tweaking focus each time, examining the results with the screen magnifier, to find best focus.

The same procedure will be easier with the external video monitor.

Michael

[Cosmic Geoff]

Bumping this up - this has been an informative thread.

I have now received the video monitor. It is decidedly not HD with a resolution of 719x234 dots, which is enough to read the camera menus but does not show all the detail in the stored images.  I'll need to try it in the dark and see how useful it is in practice.

[Cosmic Geoff]

One can access the CF card contents on the Canon 300D using a Windows XP laptop with the Canon driver installed.  One can then import or preview the images on the laptop screen.  This is an obsolete OS.

With Linux Mint Cinnamon 19, one can access the camera's CF card and import the files using the Pix utility, without needing to find a Canon driver.  (I wonder how many people know that? 🙂)  The import seemed a bit slow on my old Dell D430 laptop.