DSLRs with HD video for planetary imaging?

[gregbradley]

I was looking at the specs of some of the latest DSLRs 50D, Pentax K7 and I see they both do HD viedeo at something like 30 frames per second.

I am not sure you can alter the frame rate but you may be able to change the ISO (not sure).

Also the 50D will do very high ISO settings although there would be a point where it would be too noisy.

Anyone tried this?

Greg.

[Octane]

Greg,

I don't think the 50D does HD. It's 720p. The 5D Mark II does 1080p and looks incredible.

With the latest firmware update you can now control aperture, ISO, et. al. Full manual control.

I've made some short videos with my 5D Mark II but don't have the right hardware to view the videos natively right off the card. My poor notebook is too old. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[Gallifreyboy]

I have tried with my 500D to image Jupiter through 5X powermate with powermate to camera ring adapter HD at 30fps. Results were disappointing, it would capture in auto ISO only. Jupiter was generally overexposed. I haven't gone through things in detail to see if i can get around auto ISO. Not sure if 30fps is a limiting factor too, I suspect it may be. Modest definition only of Jupiter was achieved with same setup at 1/30 sec i.e. close to 30fps exposure at ISO 400 and 800 still pictures. If anyone else has a great solution I'd be interested.

[gregbradley]

It would make an interesting experiment to have all that imaging horsepower at a fast frame rate with control on a planet. Conventional wisdom is you don't want more than 640 x 320 but it would nice to know if there is any gain there with teh HD video.

Greg.



Thanks for that. I was under the impression it was HD but that must only be the 5D and up.

Greg.