Quote:
Originally Posted by Tilt
The firmware update did not solve the banding problem, the first frame from last nights run was still showing the single strip down the left hand side of the frame. Hmm, maybe it is a sensor issue after all. Too many pixels into a 1.6 crop is showing its weakness with astro imaging.
Michael
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Michael, I have taken plenty of long exposures with the 50D and not seem any hint of banding. I think RB's suggestion of saving to the compact flash would be the best.
I have seen plenty of comment on the noise with the 50D when it first came out. Part of this was sparked by a dpreview which didn't use the latest and greatest Canon software (DPP) for processing the images. The rest of this was a fault of the Canon marketing where it was inferred a stop or more of improvement in noise.
Most of the more recent comparisons on noise show the 50D only very slightly behind the 40D (and for the most part hardly identifiable in normal use) particularly if the right software is used. This is a pretty reasonable result on an engineering front given the pixel count has increased by one half (10Mp to 15Mp) on the same size chip.
The feature set on the 50D over the 40D in my opinion is certainly worth it for the barely perceptible (in normal use) drop in noise performance.
If you are getting noisy terrestrial images (with iso 1600 or above) perhaps try over exposing a 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop. A lot of "noisy" images just aren't correctly exposed - tending to be underexposed.