olympus dig. camera?

[JASON]

Fancy trying astrophotography.Have a 80mm ed refractor.Just bought a olympus e-520.Was going for a Cannon but was advised the Olympus was better.Anyone have any opions or experience with the Olympus .Thanks in advance

[barkis]

Who gave you the advice Jason?

I think the majority of those in the know here, would say the Canon is the better option as far as being suitable for astrophotography.

The likes of the 450D and 1000D, lend themselves very well to computer control, which is a big plus when it comes to imaging with the camera. I daresay you will get further input on this subject though.

You might like to read this thread.

http://stargazerslounge.com/equipment-help/83210-new-dslr-will-work.html

Ron.

[kev 102 42]

Canon and Nikon seem to be the choice,don't think ive ever seen an astro pic taken with an olympus ...............kev

[JASON]

Was advised that live view + image stabllizer which is built in and better than the Cannon.

[AstroTiger]

but canon also has live view and image stabiliser

Yet again with it in a telescope what for would you need the image stabilzer?

I have the canon 1000D, shot the tail of ursa major with it the other night lol. Still learning.

The olympus might be ok, but you will need a t adapter and a shutter device.

If thats in place then who knows. It might work.

You can but try

I asked for advice here a few months ago when i was buying a DSLR, hence now y i have a 1000D.

It seems the popular model on here, 450D being the other.

Again i guess its what works.

good luck with it anyway :-)

[greenkat]

I have the Olympus E500

Though I havent used it for astrophotography yet, as I am currently using DSI III.

I use it mainly for normal daytime photography and love the pictures it produces.

As for computer control, if you have the Olympus studio software, you can control everything from the pc via usb.

Same with the Nikons ( I also have a Nikon D50) , using the Nikon capture software everything can be done via usb conection.

I have tried the D50 on my ED80 but all I got was a few stars, probably not camera fault but my inexperience with DLSR for astro stuff. Plus the battery died lol

I think the Olympus will probably produce noisier images than the Canons, but as previously mentioned, havent actualy seen anyone using the Olympus for astro work.

Give it a go and see what you get, maybe be the first to show off the Olympus's astro capabilities

[jgs001]

I've seen astro images produced with the Oly's and they do work well. I think though that the max exposure time is limited to 60s. Something else to bear in mind, and this is something I've no experience of per se, as I only have IS on the lenses not in body, and at prime it's not relevant. You will probably want to turn the IS off anyway. I know that using IS on exposures longer than a second on a fixed tripod will upset the image as the IS will kick in and the moving elements shift the image around on the sensor, it took me a while to work out what the strange motor noise from the camera was .

[philsail1]

Sorry to "butt in" on this thread, but that's a very good point you mention there John.

I've been taking some "Afocal" shots with my Canon A570is digicamera and I've been plagued by unusual shakiness in most of my images. Thought it was fualt on mount. Now I'm convinced it's the camera's "stabilising" motor inducing atificial shaking!

I'll ensure I turn it off during my next session.

Thank you very much for that very useful snippet of information.

Regards,

philsail1

[jgs001]

... NP Phil, it took me a while to work it out... I shot 13 satellite trails in one night and the first half were all wavy... twas the IS...

[AstroTiger]

Sorry to be a pain John, but where and what, and how does one turn off IS?

i looked through my manual and could not find it?

I guess i am being thick here again as normal! lol

[jgs001]

The 1000d doesn't have IS. If you have it, it's in the lens itself. There's a switch on the lens next to the camera mount. On the 450d kit lens, it's on the left hand side as you look down from above.

[dph1nm]

I've seen astro images produced with the Oly's and they do work well. I think though that the max exposure time is limited to 60s

I think you are getting confused between the longest selectable shutter speed (which is limited to 60sec, cf 30secs on the Canon 1000D), and bulb, which both E420 and E520 have, and which goes up to 8mins I think.

NigelM

[jgs001]

Ah, ok thanks Nigel. In my research I could find nothing on the Oly having a Bulb mode which would allow for that sort of duration. I know the Canon isn't limited, I've shot a 34 minute exposure (it didn't work out as I'd expected, needless to say, but it was an interesting test).

[merlinxlm]

Hi Jason, I have been using my Olympus E510 for Astrophotography and I like using it, I find the controls very easy to use. I bought a remote unit off e-bay for about £16 and using it on bulb mode, it works great. I've got some of my moon pictures under my profile, they were taken in single exposures I'll post some of my other picture later on tonight. The way round the noise if to lower the iso and up the noise reduction, it works for me anyway. I hope this helps, there is also an Olympus 3/4 group on yahoo, it might be work joining it?

[EA2007]

CANON...CANON....

I have an Olympus....go for the Canon!