Imaging with a DSLR

[Rossco72]

Hi folks,

My imaging time is scarce with few clear nights and even fewer when I have the opportunity to get to a nice dark site and image.

I use my Canon 450D and have just been wondering if there are any advantages or disadvantages of using different resolutions?

To date I have used the highest resolution with the superfine setting, would there be any benefit in using a lower resolution?

I know many of you have lots more experience and can maybe give me a pointer as experimentation isn't really on the cards for me just now.

Thanks

Stuart

[LukeSkywatcher]

I'd imagine that for daytime photography that a lower resolution is ok. As for imaging at night, i would think that the highest resolution is best because you are trying to pick up as much detail as possible against a very dark background. You want everything as sharp as it can be.

Just my thoughts.

[Merlin66]

RAW hires is the way to go.

This will maximise the data you collect and give greatest opportunities ( ie RGB balance, stretching etc etc) to process the result.

Ken

[Psychobilly]

YEP use RAW .. The ONLY time I use jpeg is for long duration startrails/animations

Some aps like Yoddahs APT will need you to shoot RAW+Jpeg as the jpeg is used for on screen review...

Peter...

[Dave Smith]

As far as I can tell, the only times you ever consider taking a lower res picture than the maximum is if you are absolutely sure that the pic is for putting on the web and so need to be low res OR your memory card is virtually full and you have no spare but need to take some more pics. You can always make a low res pic from a hi res but not the other way round. Just imagine taking a once in a lifetime shot and finding it is in low resolution. I think this would apply to any kind of photography.

I shoot in RAW HI RES all the time now.

Dave

[Psychobilly]

You loose a lot more than just resolution when you work with jpegs...

You can do so much more working from the raws...

Peter..

[Rossco72]

Just for clarity, I use RAW files, just wondered if shooting in a slightly lower resolution would somehow be less noisy and produce sharper images, but i'm getting the vibe that max resoltion is the way to go.

Regards

Stuart

[Keiran]

I save all of my images as RAW and JPEG...

JPEG, because you can preview the image,

RAW, because there are more options for editting.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Just for clarity, I use RAW files, just wondered if shooting in a slightly lower resolution would somehow be less noisy and produce sharper images, but i'm getting the vibe that max resoltion is the way to go.

Regards

Stuart

Yep. For astroimaging use the highest resolution and RAW.

[Dave Smith]

I use RAW only but use Fastone Image Viewer to preview (FREE)

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

It can read many formats including RAW and is useful for resizing, converting to jpeg and many image processing tools. (I use Photoshop for anything serious)

Dave

[simon hicks]

I use RAW files, just wondered if shooting in a slightly lower resolution would somehow be less noisy and produce sharper images

Stuart, RAWs only come in one resolution, i.e. the full resolution of the camera, i.e. HI RES. So if you shoot in RAWs, which you should for astrophotography, then you can't change the resolution at the image capture stage.

Cheers

Simon

[jgs001]

I only shoot in RAW (excepting for, as Peter said, star trails)... There is so much more you can do with RAW... For daylight, you can easily correct white balance problems (when you notice them), pull back overexposure, rescue under exposure (to some degree with both) etc. For Astro, the camera processing isn't going to remove fine details during compression.

Don't expect a raw to look as good as a jpg under initial scrutiny, it won't, as the camera has adjusted the jpg, in fact, depending on your camera setting there's a good chance the preview on the back of the camera of an image shot in raw won't look anything like the actual image file, as the preview is the cameras process of the raw data, not the actual raw data itself.