Orion last night from home

[gregbradley]

From my backyard.
Testing a new lens and camera.

Canon EOS R mirrorless with a Samyang 24mm F1.4 lens.

15 x 13 seconds ISO 3200 F1.4 untracked.

http://www.pbase.com/image/168646076/large

Greg.

[Derek Klepp]

Thanks Greg it will be interesting to see what you make of this camera for night work.
Derek

[Wilso]

Greg all I can say is WOW,

Picture card perfect and love the composition with the trees in the fore ground!
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Derek.

It seems very good overall. Similar in performance to the Sony A7r3 but better star colours.



Thanks very much. I am glad you liked it. That's the view right next to my home observatory.

Greg.

[RickS]

A great test shot, Greg!

[skysurfer]

Nice shot !
Did you use full aperture (1.4) or did you squeeze ?
This Samyang 24mm f/1.4 is awesome and affordable (it has no AF).
But you can make more frames which lowers the grain/noise.

BTW, does the EOS R a builtin timelapse function, so you can use it without a remote control for making such pictures ?

I know the 80d does have this function.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rick.



Time lapse function in the 4K video section of the camera. No built in intervalometer though for stills.

I have downloaded Camrote (a new iPhone App) for that so hopefully that works.

There is another iPhone app for time lapses, I forget the exact name, something like Capscades or similar.

Greg.

[Hemi]

Surprised and disappointed that there is no built in intervalometer. I thought it was essentially a mirror less 5d4, which has a intervalometer.

Wonderful image. Would be interested in a direct comparison between the a7r3 and eos R. Have had Canons since the beginning of time and very at home with them. But the Sony’s have been tempting me for a while.

Best

Hemi

[gregbradley]

Yes an intervalometer would have been nice. The new Nikon Z7 has one and I think the Z6 also but not 100% sure of that.

EOS R versus A7r3. They are quite similar in performance. The A7r3 is probably a little bit more sensitive to light but not a lot in it. Noise levels at high ISO are similar, again A7r3 may be a tad less but not a lot in it.
But Sony has the star eater noise reduction algorithim. What that means in practice in A7r3 is fainter stars - about 30% of them, are turned green as the red and blue channels get reduced and sharp stars are confused with hot pixels.

The Sony A7r3 has pixel shift, Canon does not. I like using Pixel Shift as it gives the images a boost in colour and lower noise. Its 4 exposures for each colour in the Bayer Matrix so in a way its a tad similar to LRGB imaging.

Sony A7r2, 3 suffers from colour speckle noise in the shadows which is resistant to removal. Capture 1 single pixel noise reduction can remove it but I think you have to do that early in the processing not once you've processed the image in Lightroom.

The Canon has an excellent touch screen just like an iPhone so that is very good.
It also has unlimited time bulb exposure without an intervalometer which is handy.
It has a multiple exposure in camera stacking feature that could be handy on untracked images. You can even set it to show the evolving image.
I have only used it once and was not sure at that time how it worked exactly but I can see it would be useful for long exposure stacked landscape components of a nightscape.

Canon has touch screen shutter activation which is handy for no vibration shutter activation.

I was able to autofocus on Sirius at F1.8 on the Canon and surprisingly also with the Sony A7r3.

Canon has a unique manual focus aid where 3 tringles converge to one when in focus and the triangle and a square box turn green when you are spot on. It worked on Sirius.

Sony has a good EVF, Canon's is a bit better. Canon's rear LCD screen is a lot better at 2.1megapixels whereas Sony's is 921K dots.

The Canon menus are better and easy to navigate and are colour coded. So is Sony's and Sony allows almost endless customisation but even with that the Canon menu is better plus the other menu access points are good.

The new swipe bar is good not great on the Canon but I think its a matter of getting used to it. I have mine set to magnified view (right button magnify view and swipe for max magnification).

Both Sony and Canon electronic viewfinders (EVF) work easily for manual focusing of a star.

There is a time lapse function in the 4K video mode that outputs a movie file I think.

So overall I like it a lot and mainly for the no star eater, the correct coloured stars, the ergonomics. Long term the wider mount will show its advantages of better lens corner performance and better balanced lenses (less front heavy as the large front elements can be placed at the rear of the lens instead of always at the front).

Sony A7r3 is still an amazing camera and the 42mp backside illuminated sensor is still an engineering marvel but Sony has not supported that sensor as well as it could not being primarily a photographic company and still kind of learning the ropes.

I have no plans to sell my Sony's though. For one thing the lens selection these days is firmly in favour of Sony believe it or not.
The new Sony 24mm F1.4 GM lens is now one of the absolute best nightscape lenses with little to no coma in corners at F1.4 which is a first.
The new Sigma Art 40mm F1.4 promises to also be at a very high level for coma in the corners wide open. Other Sigma Art lenses still have a fair bit of corner coma at F1.4.

I also got the EOS R for a song so its way cheaper than my Sony A7r3 which was quite expensive. I did not want to pay full retail for it as despite the positive's above the lack of IBIS, single card slots, weaker 4K video with a 1.78X crop, older 5D4 sensor (its a very good sensor though) mean that it is lacking in key points compared to its competitors. But none of those things matter to me so that was no objection.

Canon wifi/Bluetooth transfer of photos to your smartphone is way better than Sony's which is a bit of a chore to start up. So you could be taking a nightscape and have the continuing photos sent to your smartphone quickly to review. Also control intervalometer off your smart phone (Camrote, Cascable Apps have time lapse options).

I'd have to check my Sony more carefully but long exposure noise reduction does have a considerable improvement on the Canon but I think not so much with the Sony. Not sure why. LENR does not get rid of the shadow colour speckle noise in the Sony as it is random noise. I don't know but I think it comes from the backside illumination or perhaps IBIS as the A7r did not have that.

The noise pattern of the Canon is better than the Sony which can have a wormy look to it.

A7iii is also very good for nightscapes but I think Nikon Z6 would be better as again there is no star eater. But Nikon does do something with their RAWs as they won't dark subtract properly not flat field. I am not sure if that is only the Z7 or also Z6 but there is a question mark. Z6 on the surface would be superb. It may not have a built in intervalometer either. I think it has something like Canon's 4K video time lapse function.

Greg.

[ronson]

Nice shot Greg :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much.

Greg.

[Hemi]

Thanks Greg, excellent info/comparison, very interesting indeed.
I have the 5d4, and night scape with a sigma 14 1.8, or just my nifty 50. You are of course right that the most exciting thing about the sony’s is the glass options that are now available. I will keep playing with my not so old 5d4 until I also find a singing a7r3, or eos r, or NZ7!!

H

[gregbradley]

Yes lots of options these days. Panasonic are about to enter with their full frame mirrorless. They have an advanced pixel shift that takes 8 shots. They are using the latest Sony sensors like Nikon.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

This is impressive.

Barnard’s loop with a DSLR from the ‘burbs? Wow, I am amazed. Looks like the H-alpha sensitivity of this camera is excellent.

Nice one :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Yes overall its a very good camera.

Greg.

[renormalised]

Nice shot, Greg :) Looks like the EOS R handles the LP well. Good Ha sensitivity there. Will look forward to when you can get out into some darker skies and give it a whirl.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Carl.

I have already had out in the dark. It worked very well.

I have some images just processing them more to taste.

Greg.