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Old 28-01-2008, 05:25 PM
Dennis
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Examples of “Live View” using the Canon 40D

Hello,

Here are some examples showing how useful “Live View” can be, as implemented on the Canon 40D. All images are screen prints, unprocessed, simply converted to JPG’s showing “Remote Live View” as viewed on a Notebook computer display. The other flavour of “Live View” is as viewed on the camera's 3” LCD on the rear face of the camera body.

The “zoomed” size sub-frame of Rigel, the Trapezium and the close up of the lunar crater are 100% full size. The almost whole gibbous Moon frame is the default size.

Cheers

Dennis
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  #2  
Old 28-01-2008, 07:06 PM
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nice, that makes me want to get a 40D

and a laptop...
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Old 28-01-2008, 07:24 PM
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That is a great feature!!!!!

Don't know why the general public would need this feature, but Astrophotographers will find it extremely useful
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Old 28-01-2008, 08:21 PM
Dennis
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Josh – yes, the laptop makes all the difference. In “Live View” on the 3 inch camera LCD you can see the full FOV image, or x5 mag or x10 mag.

In “Remote Live View” on the computer you get a much bigger screen making it really nice. The full FOV image or a 100% sub-frame can be seen.

Ken – I think I read somewhere that a studio photographer's assistant can be viewing the image on the computer whilst the photographer is in the studio taking the photos. The assistant can then warn them of any defects, poor lighting, etc and the client can also see the results without having to wait too long. I think there may be a Canon wireless module so the camera may not even need to be hooked up (physically) to the computer. Times are a changin’ eh!

Whilst in “Live View” mode the mirror is locked up and you can take photos in that mode, but I did read somewhere that this increases the noise in the image. I guess the on-board circuits are working harder to display the “Live View” image? Oh – you can also overlay a red grid on the display.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 28-01-2008, 10:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis View Post
Ken – I think I read somewhere that a studio photographer's assistant can be viewing the image on the computer whilst the photographer is in the studio taking the photos. The assistant can then warn them of any defects, poor lighting, etc and the client can also see the results without having to wait too long. I think there may be a Canon wireless module so the camera may not even need to be hooked up (physically) to the computer. Times are a changin’ eh!


Cheers

Dennis
Thanks Dennis
Makes sense.
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Old 28-01-2008, 10:24 PM
Dennis
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Although I’m getting a little picky now…Mirror Lock Up cannot be used when shooting intervals using the Canon SW.

However, if you activate “Remote Live View” and use the computer display, the mirror remains locked up and you can use the interval timer to shoot a series of images. However, I did hear that someone estimated the noise increases 3 fold?

The cooled ST7 is beginning to look good again!

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 28-01-2008, 10:31 PM
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Hmmmm. very impressive, might have to look into that.

Leon
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Old 28-01-2008, 11:56 PM
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I think noise increases due to heating of the sensor due to it being active. If you are only using it for the initial focus and possibly composition, followed by a short cool down period, it wouldn't be too much of an issue. Be wary of shooting darks right after using it, though.
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Old 29-01-2008, 05:58 AM
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Hi all
Having read the posts regarding mirror lockup and live view I read the mauals again and this is what the manual says.
1.page 98 says for mirror lock up shots, use the remote switch or timer remote. Therefore interval shooting is possible with mirror lockup.
2.page 107 says If shooting under direct sunlight or high tempereture environments the high temp alarm may come up.If you continue shootingwith high tempertureimage quality may degrade. If you still continue live view will shut down automatically
3.page 110 says high tempereture high iso and long exposures may cause noise or irregular colours.

This leads to a few considerations.
1.Use live view for focus checks only
2. if you shoot using raw you should be using iso 400 only as there is no advantage using high iso when shooting raw.
3.You can manually set mirror lockup and use the remote control or lap top to control interval shooting and still take darks.
4 You can also set the camera to do noise reduction or your long exposures if you wish then perhaps you dont need to shoot darks.

However you can still use live view if the tempereture environment is not high and the alarm has not activated.

IMHO the situation is not as bad as portrayed in the postings.

Regards
Steve
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Old 29-01-2008, 06:11 AM
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Hi Steve
Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty View Post
2. if you shoot using raw you should be using iso 400 only as there is no advantage using high iso when shooting raw.
There is no correlation between shooting RAW and the ISO. The ISO controls the amplification of the data, and so shooting with a high ISO means you need a shorter exposure time for a given object. Whether you use RAW or not, the effect is the same.

Higher ISO brings more noise into your image too - so it's a trade off between using shorter exposures with more noise, or longer exposures with less noise.

For astronomical applications, this needs to be considered depending on the brightness of the object, the tracking/guiding capabilities of your scope/mount, your local light pollution, how many frames you're going to take (for stacking - to reduce noise), etc.

Shooting RAW is best because it lets you control the white balance in post-production, and it gives you the full depth of the data to work with, rather than an 8-bit jpeg which is already compressed and has less dynamic range.


btw Dennis, excellent presentation of the usage of live view. I tried it with a friends 40D a few weeks ago, but we couldn't get it working through his Mac laptop at the time (it was his first try at it and we had the wrong settings).

The 40D sure is a fine camera.
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  #11  
Old 29-01-2008, 07:04 AM
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I have the 40D, great camera is it for Astrophotography. The ability to zoom into stars 10x and get them sharp is amazing help.

Live view does not increase noise, and mirror lockup is not needed as the mirror is already up!

I need to get a tracking mount and a prime focus adapter though.

Or a tracking mount and a 400 F2.8 IS!
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  #12  
Old 29-01-2008, 07:24 AM
Dennis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty View Post
1.page 98 says for mirror lock up shots, use the remote switch or timer remote. Therefore interval shooting is possible with mirror lockup.
>snip
This leads to a few considerations.
3.You can manually set mirror lockup and use the remote control or lap top to control interval shooting and still take darks.

Regards
Steve
Hi Steve

I originally wrote that “Mirror Lock Up cannot be used when shooting intervals using the Canon SW”. I still believe that this is the case?

I have tried shooting intervals using the Canon SW (EOS Utility) and MLU was not possible. It appears that when you “Enable” MLU on the camera, it greys out the interval timer button in the SW, so you are not able to set the 40D to grab say, 10 off 300 sec exposures using the EOS Utility.

Also, with MLU Enabled, it looked like I was limited to a maximum of a single, manual 30 sec exposure when I set Bulb in the SW. So, you would have to manually capture individual exposures by repeatedly “clicking” the shutter release.

Although I have used MLU and set intervals using the Canon TC-80N3 remote timer, it is not an ideal situation for me, as I like to work from the computer and control things from there.

However, thanks for your contribution – it’s good to read about the experience of other astro photographers, especially on relatively new equipment where the equipment potential and limitations are still being explored. I’m always a little nervous when reporting on new gear as lack of time and knowledge under the stars with the new gear can certainly lead to incorrect or incomplete conclusions, not withstanding simple operator errors.

I think that “Remote Live View” (where the mirror is automatically locked up) is great when taking images of the Moon as I figured that there is an awful lot of signal so the increased noise wouldn’t be a problem. Also, taking photos of the Moon closely approximates normal day light shooting as we are using sensible exposures of 1/30 sec or 1/125 sec rather than the looong 300 second exposures required for typical DSO’s.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 29-01-2008, 05:15 PM
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Hi all
The point I was making with respect to raw and iso is
1.At high iso the camera amplifies signal as well as noise by the same amount therefore no change to signal to noise ratio therefore no advantage to raw at high iso.
The noise is sampled adequately at low iso.
2.If shooting jpeg then high iso would be required or the dynamic range would suffer.

With respect to MLU perhaps the problem lies with the 30 sec reset time of the mirror.
The EOS utility software does give access to the timer for interval shooting. Perhaps I am not understanding the issues you are experiencing.

I must confess little experience with astrophotography but i have been studying the handbook of astronomical image processing by Richard Berry and James Burnell and the 40d handbook.
Unfortunately my OTA rings have still not arrived and so cannot practice what I preach. Hopefully the rings will arrive very soon.
I have a GSO 12", eq6 pro , 40DH and a hargreaves strut. I am hoping that i will be able to explore all aspects of astrophotography with this setup before having to purchase either a bigger mount or smaller OTA.

Incidentally here are 10 tips for great dslr images from the handbook

1.Shoot under dark sky
2.Use fast optical system
3.Avoid vignetting
4.Stack your images
5.Store images in raw
6.Shoot using low ISO
7.Make darks and flats
8.Mix long and short exposures
9.Dither Tracking.

Thanks for a great forum with active discussion.

Regards
Steve
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Old 29-01-2008, 10:19 PM
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hi Dennis
I re read your post and i now understand the problem.
Have you done a firmware update on the camera?
I have some time ago and will check the situation on my setup this evening and see if the same issue exists after the update.
Regards
Steve
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Old 30-01-2008, 01:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty View Post
1.At high iso the camera amplifies signal as well as noise by the same amount therefore no change to signal to noise ratio therefore no advantage to raw at high iso.
The noise is sampled adequately at low iso.
I'm not certain I follow the logic here. Raw will still get around the JPEG artefact problem, where noise in the image generates error in adjacent pixels due to the JPEG compression algorithms. Raw will always out-perform JPEG for captured image fidelity unless you are shooting a 100% flat monochrome frame at ISO 100 with a very low noise sensor.

Additionally, the readout signal to noise ratio in the 40D has been shown to improve even up to ISO 1600, meaning that faint signal will be able to be detected over the background noise more effectively if your sub frames are shot at ISO 1600 than at ISO 400, for example. See http://www.astrosurf.com/~buil/eos40d/test.htm . Even if the strong signals are amplified as much as the noise, that lower readout noise floor does provide an advantage to shooting at high ISO, and due to the artefact issues mentioned above, shooting in raw will provide better data.

Regards,
Eric
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Old 30-01-2008, 05:18 AM
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Very impressive. Can you save the liveview video image to computer or camera. Im thinking planetary imaging (although obviously it would not be as good as 30-60 frames per second).

Cheers
David
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  #17  
Old 30-01-2008, 06:14 AM
Dennis
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Originally Posted by skwinty View Post
hi Dennis
I re read your post and i now understand the problem.
Have you done a firmware update on the camera?
I have some time ago and will check the situation on my setup this evening and see if the same issue exists after the update.
Regards
Steve

Hi Steve

I think the 40D was at 1.0.4 when purchased and I updated to 1.0.5 in early Dec 2007. I believe that this is the latest release having just checked the Canon website.

Good luck when the tube rings arrive, you’ll enjoy using this little beauty, it is an excellent camera for astro photography.

Cheers

Dennis
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  #18  
Old 30-01-2008, 06:26 AM
Dennis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prickly View Post
Very impressive. Can you save the liveview video image to computer or camera. Im thinking planetary imaging (although obviously it would not be as good as 30-60 frames per second).

Cheers
David
Hi David

Having read the manual several times and used the camera for a few weeks now, I haven’t discovered a function to do this, although as you say, it would be nice!

If Canon did implement this with a Firmware update, then it would be useful to save the Zoomed In “Region Of Interest” of Remote Live View as that sub-frame area is 100% full size.

Incidentally, when I was in Remote Live View mode, the HDD activity LED on my notebook went crazy, although I did also have PHD Guiding and TheSky open at the time too.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 30-01-2008, 03:17 PM
Dennis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty View Post
3.You can manually set mirror lockup and use the remote control or lap top to control interval shooting and still take darks.
Regards
Steve
Hi Steve

I’ve just had another look at my notes from that night and confirmed that as soon as you enable MLU via the menu system within the Canon 40D body, you cannot use either the interval timer or the shutter release within the EOS Utility software capture window on the computer.

Specifically, as soon as you enable MLU on the camera body, the following happens within the EOS Utility capture window:
  • EOS Utility displays a warning triangle in the top window that MLU is active.
  • The LED icon switches from White to Red.
  • The shutter release icon is greyed out (you cannot click the icon).
  • The interval timer clock icon is greyed out (you cannot program a series of exposures).
Also, the manual incorrectly shows that the shooting mode can be changed from within the EOS Utility capture window (see Page 32) by stating that you can <Double Click> on the “shooting mode icon”. This is not the case in my installation as the icon is greyed out by default and I cannot find a custom setting to change this.

In fact, when you think about this a little more deeply, it makes sense NOT to be able do this. Otherwise you would have the physical shooting mode dial on the camera body indicating one setting (e.g. M), whilst the EOS Utility capture window would show the newly changed setting, (e.g. P) – not a good thing.

However, on Page 25 of the EOS Utility guide it does correctly note that you cannot change the shooting mode via the software.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 30-01-2008, 03:24 PM
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Yes - that's exactly the problem my friend and I had on the night we used his 40D. We were trying to control it remotely, but couldn't because MLU was enabled.
We couldn't see the red triangle because of the red cellophane over the screen
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