Upgrading Astrophotography Camera

If you have a 300D, a PC and a flash card reader, I'd strongly advise that you do the firmware upgrade.
Keith, I've found that the mirror lock is much more valuable then the iso3200 as the 3200 is more prone to noise.

FWIW, I have updated the firmware but have noticed no difference so far. ISO3200 is IMHO a bit pointless. Is the mirror lock-up feature really that useful for astrophotography images?? As the images we take are usually of very dim objects, would it be fair to say that chances are virtually no detail would be recorded in the fraction of a sec it takes for the vibration of the moving mirror to cease? If it were a major issue, surely it would be alot more critical for daytime images where alot more light is gathered and the vibration time is much closer to the exposure time???

As the images we take are usually of very dim objects, would it be fair to say that chances are virtually no detail would be recorded in the fraction of a sec it takes for the vibration of the moving mirror to cease? If it were a major issue, surely it would be alot more critical for daytime images where alot more light is gathered and the vibration time is much closer to the exposure time???

I think it depends on the overall setup. With my 1 meter long scope on an equatorial mount the vibration from the camera causes the whole setup to shake when the mirror flips, and its very noticable. Or rather was with my film SLR, the digital may differ. Perhaps those with steady fork mounted scopes would not suffer the problem to the same extent.

With daylight photography the exposures are usually to short to show up the problem. Though when you use longer exposures with telephoto lenses you can detect the problem. But with most pictures the image is mainly bright, so a little bit of extra brightness on an already bright area does not make a huge difference. With astrophotography, a slight star move, will stand out clearly against a black background.

Thats been my experience anyway.

Cheers,
~Al

Is the mirror lock-up feature really that useful for astrophotography images?? As the images we take are usually of very dim objects, would it be fair to say that chances are virtually no detail would be recorded in the fraction of a sec it takes for the vibration of the moving mirror to cease?

I've tried the canon on the etx70 for getting the moon and the mirror delay does make a differance in this case.
On that mount. that camera is a serious load, and the entire mount does take a hit for those short exposures.
On the other hand, the 12" is unaffected by this problem, as the camera here is not such a big load.
So, if you've a wobbly mount, the mirror lockup could be benificial.

Heres the link to the WASIA firmware;

satinfo.narod.ru/en/index.html

There is another one called the 'undutchables'. I cant recommend it because I havent tried it. My experience is that ISO 3200 (shows up as 'H' on the camera) is more prone to noise. However, if you have no means of autoguiding, it will be useful as you can take a whole rake of shorter exposures and stack them. I find the noise at ISO3200 isnt as bad as you might imagine. I also find it very useful for getting a quick framing shot.

As for the mirror lockup. It is certainly more noticable at higher ISO's, you may get away without it. but why? It's there all you have to do is enable it with the new firmware. If there is one single thing I have learned about astrophotography, its that there is no room for shortcuts or taking chances. If there is something positive you can do, then do it.

Thanks for that link Dave I'll have a read.

As for the mirror lock up, maybe it's worth a note that sometimes it's best to go back to old fashioned methods regarding waiting for the vibration (whatever your set up is) to die down, just do the hat trick

Set off your exposure with the lens/scope covered by a hat/piece of black cardboard - anything to block the image trail, take away after 10 seconds

Put it in the way of your image trail just before ending the shot. Not a bad alternative and it does work, either way, you should get an unblemished shot

Keith..