Canon twin lens kit Telephoto (300mm)

[Doug]

G'day guys, Someone, can't recall who, or what thread, was wondering about the Canon 350 twin lens kit telephoto?
I just picked up one for an upcomming holiday trip, and tried the telephoto out as well as the standard. Here are trial pics with the telephoto, taken at Kurnell Saturday just past. The Telephoto seems quite fair center image, however it falls apart as you approach the edges; hate to think what it would do to a star field, but I think it will do for the happy snaps it was purchased for. The second image is a crop at 200 % zoom in Photoshop.
Cheers,
Doug

nb. edited because I goofed! I did not include pic from standard lens as original text implied..sorry for the goof up.

[Dennis]

Hi Doug

Enjoy your holiday and don't forget to post some holiday snaps!

Cheers

Dennis

[acropolite]

Doug, the performance of the standard kit lenses will improve at smaller apertures, the trade off is longer exposure times and or having to use a tripod.

[Doug]

Yes Phil, agreed. I don't even know if the camera was set to apeture priority or shutter priority or what; I just took a couple of images to make sure the thing works. Now I have to sit down with the 'book of words' and figure out how to 'fly' it. Actually for the money, I'm thinking it is a prety good deal. I didn't buy it with Astro-imaging in mind, I need a good camera to record scenes that I might not ever revisit.

Cheers,
Doug

[astrocoast]

Hey doug
I was actually looking at the cannon 350 twin kit today as I'm going OS and thought I may get it and save the GST - plus there seems to be some good deals around.

Is this camera good for astro photography which is what I would like to get into later on - not ready yet! If I get it, I want to make sure that I will be able to use it later on for what I need.

I've been reading some of the threads here and I think the message I'm getting is that it's OK and then I read about removing the IR blocking filter :shrug: uuh? so in simple terms yeah or nay about the cannon?

cheers
Martin

[iceman]

Simple terms? Yay!

[astrocoast]

Thanks Mike
I think the yays have it. Was just reading another thread that I just found about the 350 - it seems to be the go.

I'm sure that when I start to really get into it, I'm sure the money pit will open up and swallow my hard earned cash :lol:

Cheers
Martin

[iceman]

It's an excellent camera, Martin. I have one of my own but use it mainly for terrestrial at the moment. But the good thing is, I *know* I can use it for DSOs etc later down the track.

[Doug]

G'day Martin, the Canon 350D is really quite ok for Astro-imaging, but like any other imaging option it has plusses and minuses. It is fairly cheep comparitively speaking, has good sensitivity, even with the IR blocking filter intact. It is supported by very high quality S/w 'Images plus and MaxDslr to name just 2.
The sensor is much larger that a webcam or the Meade DSIs etc and the pixel size is very competitive.
As for changing the IR filter for a better, higher cutoff one, that is probably only beneficial if you wanted to get the best out of emission Nebula, but really the difference is not all that compelling. Sure you will get better red response without the native filter, but then you might need to add another filter to the moded 350D if you want to use it for daylight terestrial work.
On the down side the 350D seems to be not the best pixel size wise for wide field astro-imaging, with most images showing undersampleing, but it is for wide field work that the lager sensor is so appealing.
Others might not entirely agree with my comments, and that is ok because I have no hands on with the 350D for astro imaging. Mine will probably never get closer that 3 meters to my scopes, because when I get my scopes back on line, I'll use the ST10mxe.
So far I am very pleased with my 350D and recomend it. You will find it much much more than just a 'good' entry level imager for astro-imaging, you will find it excellent, and as you advance in the hoby, you will know first hand if you want to proceed with the filter mod or not.
HTH
cheers,
Doug