What is a decent beginner's camera for astrophotography?

Question

I have a Celestron Astromaster 114EQ and live in a city (so light pollution is pretty bad). What would be a reasonable DSLR camera for taking photos of the moon and planets? My budget is under £250 (about $400US).

I have tried a borrowed Nikon D50, but that applies some automatic filtering to the image, and you can't stop it. I was considering a Canon 1000D, but wanted some more experienced thoughts!

Asked by n/a

Answer

For the moon and planets, you should consider a Webcam -- see for instance http://www.astronomyhints.com/webcam_make.html . If you don't want to hack your own, you can try one of the low-end imagers from the usual suspects, such as the Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager.

You should also consider afocal photography: http://www.aoas.org/article.php?story=2007062522295274 I use a universal mount with a point-and-shoot and it does very well with the moon.

If you want to hook directly up to the OTA using a T-Ring adapter, I'm not sure what the D50 does, but I can set up my Nikon D80 to behave well-enough. (Of course, my D80 still has an IR filter, which you'd want to get rid of in a dedicated astrophoto rig...)

Update: I totally forgot about "live focus," which Nikon's of the D80 and D50 generations didn't have. If I were to buy a DSLR with the intention of regularly using it for astrophotography, the ability to use the LCD to focus would be a MAJOR factor.

Answered by Larry OBrien

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Beginner lenses for Canon T2i

Question

What are the best lenses for starting out with a Canon T2i while still covering a whole bunch of creative techniques / teaching photography (and also theory) to beginners

Asked by Harsh

Answer

Assuming that your T2i has some lens, that is the best one to start. Learn how to use the camera. Once you have taken a few thousand photos, you will know what kinds of shots you like, what your needs are, and then it will be obvious to you what types of lenses you should get as a second, or third lens.

The "kit lens" on the T2i was the 18-55. Its a cheap lens, but will do the job. Many folks like the Canon EFS 50mm F1.8 as a second lens, its a much faster prime. But if you like to take sports or wildlife photos, you will want a longer telephoto zoom.

Don't hang around photography forums, go shoot photos.

And get a decent post processing software package, such as Aperture, Lightroom or Photoshop Elements. Even beginners can do amazing stuff with these packages, an they are all under $200.

Answered by Pat Farrell

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