Quote:
Originally Posted by joshman
cheers for the advice, glad to have some first hand experience to go from.
i will go with the 70-300mm lens and look at getting a 2x tele-converter in the near future.
|
You may consider MTO1100... It is Maksutov-Cassegrain, russian made and it is very good value for money (I have one for 30 years now and I intend to use it for this occasion, I am using it as an excellent portable telescope, the star images are diffraction limited, after the whole thing stabilizes thermally ).
You can find details here:
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/mto_11_ca_lens.htm
To fit Canon400D (and avoid tele-converters) it is possible to perform a very easy to do modification: the removal of the focus stops enables you you to focus MTO1100 on film (or sensor) positioned further away (Canon 400d requires this because of build in flash unit) , and this also increases focal length (normally focal plane is fixed to 45mm, with mod you can go 30cm away which will give you 10m FL, but I do not recommend this, of course).
Unfortunately the prices of this excellent optics went up recently, but they are still much lower compared to big names like Canon and/or Nikon... Not to mention Questar and similar brands.
edit:
a bit more info on Russian MTO's here:
http://www.teleskop-service.com/maks...O.html#MTO1000
