Help! Tips Guide With a Canon 300D

Hi guys,
There are so many settings on the 300d i just dont know where to start! I had the camera piggybacked on the scope a couple of nights ago and i was just taking some photos of orion nice widefield snaps. Many of the settings give the photo false colours. Then when i go to view the pics the fec*ing auto white balance kicks in and alot of stars 'disappear' from my image! Its really started to pi$$ me off at this stage! What are the perfect settings? And also in a light polluted area whats the best F stop to use?? The 300D goes right up to 45!!!

HELP!!!!

Any and All advice very much appreciated!
Matthew C

Hi Matthew.
If you are piggybacking the camera is it in polar mode?
If not you will be limited to between 20 / 30 second exposure
due to the rotation of the earth.
(assuming you know all the basics of celestial motion)

I usually shoot (from my not so light polluted home)
with these settings.

Tv (time value) - 25 sec.
Av (aparture value) - 4.
you can stop it down further but you get sharper images (starpoints)
the higher the AV setting.
You have then to compromise between AV and the ISO setting.
I would usually use an ISO of around 800 as the 1600 setting
gives a lot of noise and picks up all the light pollution.

As for white balance and all that I'd leave it set to auto (AWB)
until you get a few more shots under your belt and
then start experimenting with those settings.
(depending on what you are shooting they can be important)

One other thing,
even though I use a shutter release cable (digital )
I still use the bowler hat technique.
eg I relese the shutter while holding something black in front of
the lense (I'f even used my hand cupped around it)
be careful not to tip the lens)

then after 3/4 seconds when I'm happy the vibrations have died down
I move away the object and begin exposing.
The the reverse to close the lens.
It's probably overkill but at least I'm sure there will be no
movement from the shutter to ruin a shot.

Home some of this was helpful to you.

Hi Matthew, the white balance can be corrected in the software you have with the 300D, generally when I had one, I always left the white balance at auto, as any of the other settings were poor in my view, giving wildly colored shots fron blue to very brown.

Open up a shot in your software, preferrably a RAW shot, and play with the white balance from there until the shot is natural looking. Alternatively, do you have photoshop?

As for the f-value in light polluted area's I'd generally fo for about f4 to f4.5, any lower a number will open uo the lens further and leave in all that nasty light pollution. Have you considered a CLS filter, thet seem to do great work in eliminating it, bit you have to expose a shot for a bit longer.

Frank's advise is sound, I do the same!

Keith..

*Made into a Sticky*