Advice needed for Canon 1000D

[MartinB]

For the last 2 days I have been the proud owner of a Canon 1000D. It's primary purpose is for family photos but I intend to use it for wide field astro pics as well. It comes with an 18-55mm EFs lens but I understand this is built to a very low price point and has quality to match.

I am a complete novice when it comes to using a DSLR for astro work. I will continue to use my CCD cameras for telescopic DSO work although I might occasionally connect it up to a ZS66 when on holiday.

First off, am I right in thinking that regardless of whether I'm using an EF or an EFs lens I should multiply the focal length by 1.6 to have the equivalent 35mm FOV?

I am thinking of imaging star trails, meteors, widefield constellations and Milky Way shots. I will also probably upgrade the supplied lens for general photography and might want to go up to 200mm type focal lengths occasionally as well.

Any advice on lenses - zooms or prime. I've had a look at the Canon range including the L series:eek: Also the Sigmas and Tamrons and am now just confused.

I'm happy to pay for quality but want be on the low side of the diminishing returns curve.

So please could you give me your lens advice.

Also - I want to keep things simple, no laptops or wires! Is focusing a matter of using live view, mag x10 and focusing on a bright star or does it need to be more sophisticated than that?

[arad85]

Timer release is essential: UK Timer Remote Switch CANON 450D 1000D 350D RS-60E3 on eBay (end time 13-Jan-10 00:08:12 GMT)

You can get cheaper, but that one is UK based...

As to lenses, I have no idea as what is a good upgrade to the stock lens - I still only have the 18-55 that came with my 450D.. One thing I do know is yes, you do x by 1.6 to go to 35mm equivalent.

[MartinB]

Thanks Arad, I'll have a look at that

[brianb]

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 prime lens is superb for "wide field" astro work and it's the cheapest in the range!

For a tighter image, the 70-200 f/4L is great ... the 2.8 isn't worth the extra money and, for astro work, image stabilization is useless, though it's a great help when hand holding a tele zoom for general photography. You may think this lens fairly expensive (though it's the cheapest of the 4 variants of 70-200 "L" zooms) but it really is a major improvement on the "consumer" telezooms. The 200/2.8L prime lens is also well worth consideration for dedicated astro use though it's less useful for general work.

One feature of the "professional" L series lenses that people tend to forget about, they're much more "weatherproof" than the consumer lenses, this is a useful attribute to astro imagers who tend to be working waist deep in condensation....

[brianb]

Focusing - most lenses work OK using autofocus on a bright star or planet using the central (most sensitive) AF point, at any rate with my 5D & 40D cameras. Flick the AF/MF switch to the MF position after focusing, being careful not to disturb the focusing ring! The Moon works with every lens I've ever tried, even slow wide angle lenses. If the Moon isn't available and there isn't enough light from a star for the AF to work, use a distant street light - if it's 5,000 times as far away as the focal length of the lens (e.g. 1 Km for a 200mm lens, or 100m for 20mm) then it's effectively at infinity so far as the camera is concerned.

Personally I've never found "live view" to be much help ... the focusing screen is too bright so I lose dark adaptation, the angle is all wrong & the short integration time required for "live view" makes it hard to see stars anyway.

[MartinB]

Thanks Brian. Very useful (and potentially costly ) advice.

What about for the really wide stuff?

[brianb]

What about for the really wide stuff?

Really wide? I don't know, the shortest lens I have is 17mm. (17-40 f/4L) The Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM (which only works with crop frame cameras) is well thought of for general photography and not particularly expensive but I'm not sure how it would work for astro work. A bit slow, possibly.

Most wide angle lenses have rather a lot of illumination falloff towards the corners, especially when used at full aperture. A 50mm lens on a crop frame (APS-C) camera covers an area of the sky the size of the "W" of Cassiopeia quite nicely, anything shorter than that I'd regard as something of a specialist device ... personally I'd find it harder to justify spending £400 on a EF 20mm/2.8 USM than £4000 on a EF 300mm f/2.8L IS!

I've taken a few wide, wide views of the Milky Way with my 17-40 f/4L and at the "short" end of my 24-105 f/4L IS and they've been more or less up to my expectations. In the event that a huge comet appears, I'd be happy to use the kit I already have. I suspect that the kit lens you have would work pretty well, too. Not ideal, but workable on the fairly rare occasions that a true wide angle is wanted.

[MartinB]

Thanks Brian. I think Kevin (BeyondVision uses a Sigma 10-20mm so might be worth a look.

[Beyond_Vision]

The Sigma 10-20mm is good but there is distortion to the edges. I also have the 17 to 35mm F2.8-4.0 Sigma EX Lens and this makes a good replacement for the stock lens. As said before the 200mm L lense would be great for M45 and M31 size objects. It is also worth noting that the EFs lens range is incompatible with the CLS Clip Filter so it's best to stick to EF canon lenses and third party stuff.

Regards

Kevin

[MartinB]

Thanks for that Kevin. I'm making notes!

[Lemmy]

Slightly off topic but you might want to consider getting the right angle view finder - it makes viewing/focussing so much easier when the camera is fixed to a scope or tripod and aimed fairly high in the sky.

[mint_mark]

Hi Martin, here is my attempt to answer your questions... I've been using my 1000d with lenses for astrophotography for a year now...

If your kit lens is the 18-55 with IS, then that is considered a reasonable lens and is good to start with. There is an older non-IS version which is not so good. Your are right about the crop factor... multiply everything by 1.6 to get 35mm equivalent focal lengths if those numbers help you to visualise the field of view. I ended up making a spreadsheet to show my lenses' views in degrees to compare with a star atlas.

Generally primes will be sharper than zooms and have wider apertures. You either use the lens wide open and have a degree of distortion near the edges or you stop it down and have diffration spikes on bright stars. A wide prime stopped down is still faster than a zoom stopped down, so shorter exposures required. Will you be on a tracking mount or fixed tripod?

The term "widefield" seems to mean different things to different people. Those used to telescopes call 200mm wide, but for me that's quite telephoto! For really wide there are zooms that start at 10-12mm and you can capture from Polaris to Altair. 50mm is OK but a 30-35mm prime will get Orion in.

Check out Lenses for Astrophotography for some background. Lenses with very good astro reputations seem to be the 100mm macro (either version), 200mm f2.8L and 400mm f5.6L. The 50mm f1.8 is a great budget choice, but the 1.4 version is an improvement. The Sigma 30mm or Canon 35mm both get good reports. Don't know about the L primes at the wide end... my budget isn't that large Have a look at Canon Digital SLR Camera and Lens Reviews at The-Digital-Picture.com or Welcome to Photozone! for many lens reports and comparisons.

Kevin's comment about the clip filter and EF-S lenses is important. Getting one of those allows you to do longer exposures and capture fainter objects (including nebulae) without getting blown out by light pollution. If you want a clip in light pollution filter then it only works with EF or 3rd party lenses.

The right angle finder is OK, but I find only the brighter objects show up. I use live view and MF for focussing, but I'm going to try and use the AF method more.

[MartinB]

Thanks a lot Lemmy and Mark. My camera, which my wife bought me for Christmas recently from Jessops has the non IS kit lens. Not sure whether this was a a reduced price or whether she was palmed off with old stock.

Anyway, I've forked out on a Tokina 16-50 F2.8which I think will be useful for a general purpose standard lens and give a pretty wide field of view. I will play with this for a while and then decide whether I would like other focal lengths. I've got the CLS clip filter on order from Bern. Need to order the remote control.

I will be using a Super Polaris. This doesn't have a dovetail so need to get one made up and then sort out a camera mount on a dovetail. Quite a lot to do!

[FLO]

Martin, I have a Canon EF 50 f1.8, a 24mm f2.8 and a 17-40 f4L USM that you are welcome to borrow if you would like to 'kick the tyres'. For best results large-aperture prime lenses are King but you still need to reduce the aperture by a stop or two for reduced aberrations. The absolute best performance is usually obtained 2-3 stops back from the lenses 'minimum' aperture, though that is less relavant with well-made prime lenses.

HTH

EDIT: Ah, I didn't read your last post, not too worry

[Beyond_Vision]

The Tokina should be good Martin I have a second hand 28-70mm Tokina ATX pro F2.6-2.8. It's built like a tank and has produced some good results. As Steve says, most lenses will require stopping down 1 or 2 stops.

Regards

Kevin

[Tinkerbell]

Lo Martin

Jerry Lodriguss has done quite a bit of testing on the IS version and He likes it a lot. Have a read and see what You think.

< Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Autofocus Zoom Lens Test >

I have tried it and yes it does work but takes a bit of practice with the focusing. Trial and error works best, take a shot, check the focus then re focus and take another shot. After a while You will get a feel for the correct focus. I would also recommend the Nifty-Fifty, at the price they are You will be surprised how good the results are. As for the L series they are expensive but they are good and the resale value is pretty good, the weather sealing has been mentioned and the manual focusing is much more precise.

Hope this helps.

[MartinB]

Thanks guys, very helpful responses. Thanks for the offer of the lenses Steve. I would certainly be interested in trying them out although now I've gone ahead with the Tokina purchase can I come back to you at a later time.

Kevin (BV), I've read nothing but good things about the Tokina. Not cheap but much better built than other 3rd parties and a bit cheaper than the Canons.

Kev (MP), unfortunately my camera came with the none IS version. I'm going to take this up with Jessops tomorrow. Nothing was mentioned about an IS version to my wife and it just looks like they have off loaded old stock. The reputation of the non IS isn't great and all the advice is to upgrade. Looking at Jerry's results though, maybe I should have tried it a little more first!

[FLO]

Whenever you like Martin

[dph1nm]

As far as I know the Canon 1000D in the UK now comes with the non-IS lens (I just bought one from Tesco). I suspect this was not the case when it was first released ...

NigelM

[blackgerby]

As far as I know the Canon 1000D in the UK now comes with the non-IS lens (I just bought one from Tesco). I suspect this was not the case when it was first released ...

NigelM

Amazon also now sell it with the non-IS lens.

[arad85]

When I was looking (June/09), all the 1000D kits were non-IS. I bought the 450D for that reason (it's my main camera too). Looking at some of the comparisons done, perhaps I should have gone with the 500D.... Oh well....