Upgrading Astrophotography Camera

Hi,
It's appears the Canon 300D does not have mirror lock up, but the Canon 350D does.
Mirror Lock-Up is fairly important for astronomy as it reduces shake due to mirror vibration. Not important for long exposures or very short exposures.

A mild, reversible firmware hack is available for the 300D for that.

After some sleuthing through these boards, I found these threads John:

Canon 300D mirror lockup
Convert Cannon 300D into 10D!
Modified Canon 300D - Anyone got one?

Hope these are of some help & tips.

Seanie.

I installed the modified software onto my 300D for mirror lock, works very nicely.

And Dave L's point is worth considering very seriously. Try and find out if vignetting would become a serious issue with the bigger chips - if so, you'll need to buy the camera and a new scope.

As far as I know the chip size in the 300d and 350d is the same, otherwise the focal reduction ratio of 1.6 would be different on each camera.

I think that if you have the money the 20da has some nice features like real time focus mode. Other wise you are spending a lot of money for not much improvement.

I tend to agree with Dave Grennan that the filter mod would be the way to go, although I would get another body an use that for the mod myself

Later,

Jed.

Thanks Guys for all your comments, I think I'm swaying more towards the 350D, as I've said, I've seen nothing from the 20D/20Da to persuade me to part with an extra lot of dosh, nice to have it if your lucky, but agreed, not much improvement.

I've heard of the issue of the banding at high ISO's with the 20D as well. The lighter body on the 350D would also be a big plus attached to the scope.

I think your best bet would be to mod the 300d. I'm seriously considering it

Me too It's tempting to keep the money to spend on a good lens :idea:
Anyway, Isn't that big lad called Santa coming soon........

Keith..

So, has anyone fully costed and sourced all you need for the upgrade,