Upgrading Astrophotography Camera

I have the Canon 350D which is excellent ( but don't have a scope )

The 20D is a slightly bigger body than the 350D and it's an all metal body where the 350D is all plastic.

The sensor and most of the electronics are the same. The biggest difference is in the speed, 3fps for the 350D and 5fps for the 20D

I don't know much about the 20Da, it has better light sensitivity for astophotography and low noise at high ISO sensitivity

For a good comparsion, see www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/eo...rebel_xt_vs_20d.html

I don't have any shots with the 350D - I was just using a friend's for some sports photography and noted that the noise performance was the same as the 20D's.

Darragh is correct in saying that there is no real difference between the 20D and the 350D (in anything relating to astrophotography). The 20D obviously has a few perks that make the difference for a photojournalist but that won't affect you when you're using it with a telescope. Also the heavier body might make a difference. I notice that my Skylux struggles to hold the 20D.

I'm based in Dublin but some of my family live down in Waterford (Mooncoin actually but it's close enough). If you can wait that long, I should be down for Christmas and I could let you have a run with the 20D and you can see if it's what you're looking for...

That said, I think there's only about an extra 1-1.5 stops that the improvement in noise will bring you over the 300D. Also I know that there is an issue with 20D banding at high ISO's.

Keith as you know, I have a 300D too. Jed Glover has a 350D I'm sure he'll comment on it. I had a good look at a friends 20D the other night and I have seen nothing that would make me consider upgrading to either. If I were starting again from scratch I'd go for the 350D I dont think the extra grand for the 20D offers enough to warrant the spend from an astrophotography point of view.

I think your best bet would be to mod the 300d. I'm seriously considering it. I'll probably do it before Christmas so I have time to play with while I have the time off work.

Think about it, minimal investment gets you a much more capable camera.

Its gonna cost 20$ for the new glass. An extra $109 fora top notch filter to get back your daytime camera. from reading I'm not satisfied that playing with the white balance settings works well enough to do without a proper IR filter.

Thats what I'd do if I were you.

When I was buying the 350D the comparison with the 20d was like this:

20D pros:
can do 3200ISO
can do 1/8000s
almost twice as fast continuous shooting.
better battery apparently.

350D pros:
about EUR 500 cheaper.
200g lighter

I use the camera almost exclusively for normal photography, but the weight difference and price outweigh the 20D features.

For astronomy the 20D is less noisy at 1600ISO, if you want to shoot at that speed. The 350D is close, whereas the 300D gets rather noisy at 1600.

That 500 euro went a long part of the way to paying for my 70-200 lens for the 350D.

Cheers,
~Al

I see the 350D is simply a camera with more pixels (8.2 vrs 6.3) but that seems just it.

350D pros:
more pixels.
a lot less noisy at 1600ISO. (newer cmos)
metering is better
comes in black[1]
can do continuous shooting for more than 2 seconds. (ie can write to card faster)
USB2
100g lighter
does the 300D have different focus modes?

300D pros:
hopefully soon on the second hand market!

It depends on what you want to use it for, and what your budget is.

Got my 350D from pixmania.com shortly after it came out with the kit lens and a 1G card for under EUR1000.

Cheers,
~Al

[1] Now that I have a black camera againpeople get out of my way when I take shots, that never happend with my silver film SLR!

Hi,
It's appears the Canon 300D does not have mirror lock up, but the Canon 350D does. Also the Nikon 50D only has it for "mirror cleaning".

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.

John