Digital photography

a test fail ?

well is it?

It didn't look that damaged but the fire brigade still had to cut the roof off for whatever reason.

maybe the instructors instructions were

handbrake turn, emergency stop and get this £5'er on lucky lady in the 3.30 at ascot

Sorry to post such a boring question, but my Canon 1000D (about 4 years old) has the dreaded non-specific error 99 showing and won't shoot any more. I've tried the usual tricks - cleaning contacts, changing memory card, changing battery, but no joy.

Rather than forking out for a repair, should I take this as a chance to upgrade to something like the 600D which has lower noise (important to someone who takes exposures of up to 3 minutes) and a fancy swivelly screen?

yes

Thank you. Good clear and unequivocal advice there.

: ]

Swivelly screen = asking to break.

This seems like a good deal if you are after low noise:
http://www.apertureuk.com/Can-Photo/5D@370/5D@370.html

Blimey, are 5Ds normally that cheap?

Very tempting, but for astrophotography, I'd not be using all that much of the full-sized sensor as my optics don't give a big enough flat field.

And the 600D seems to have the capacity to film at a high frame rate on a cropped section of its sensor, ideal for planets or the ISS. Perhaps my criteria are a bit specialised.

And another thing, I have and EF-S lens as well as EF lenses.

Sorry to post such a boring question...

No fence, no talk.

No fence, no talk.

OK Ed, how's this fence?

Swivelly screen = asking to break

..never heard of anybody breaking one.

What the heck do you do with your cameras?

He been using it.

You mean he been using & he done breakin' it, or wat?

Saw this a minute ago. Thought it was funny because the trolley thing is gold too...

I like billboards. Are billboards the new fences?

yes

Blimey, are 5Ds normally that cheap?

Very tempting, but for astrophotography, I'd not be using all that much of the full-sized sensor as my optics don't give a big enough flat field.

And the 600D seems to have the capacity to film at a high frame rate on a cropped section of its sensor, ideal for planets or the ISS. Perhaps my criteria are a bit specialised.

And another thing, I have and EF-S lens as well as EF lenses.

Would the 5d be no good at planets? Serious question I'm thinking of buying a telescope and already have a 5d.

People here that photograph conferences / events - jpeg?

Would the 5d be no good at planets? Serious question I'm thinking of buying a telescope and already have a 5d.

Planets are such tiny targets that you really don't need a very big sensor. I currently image planets using a tiny 4.83mm x 3.63mm sensor, with only 1.3MP. The important trick is to take a huge number of frames in a very short space of time, and then stack them to improve the signal to noise ratio. On bright planets (i.e. Jupiter) I'm able to shoot at close to 100fps.

To get a decent-sized image on the chip you'll need a really long focal length; I usually shoot at about 5000mm (f25) which is perhaps at the long end of the range that gives the right relationship between the pixel size and the resolving power (aperture) of the scope. With that focal length, you have the challenge of getting the image onto the chip (that's one area where a big sensor might help) and keeping it there (that's why you can easily spend more on the mount than on the optics).

The 5D would be excellent for wide-field shots - big pixels mean high sensitivity and low noise - but if you can shoot video with it, you may get good results with planets too.

What sort of ISOs are you using? I've heard of people cooling their cameras to below freezing to reduce noise for astrophotography. Could be a cool experiment.

It will also reduce the battery lifespan.

Big dedicated CCD arrays are often cooled to reduce hardware-related noise, but for planetary stuff combination of short exposures and stacking will get avoid that problem.

Some folk use peltier cooling and cold-finger devices on DSLRs to chill the sensor but, as with the dedicated astro-CCDs, the power supply is not cooled - in fact they're rarely run off internal batteries.

To be honest, even when shooting bigger and fainter targets, I rarely feel the need for anything higher than 800, partly because of the noise but also because the light pollution will swamp everything.