Camera choice?

[garymck (Gary)]

Hi,
I'm looking for a new camera/lens combo. Unfortunately it has to serve two purposes that have somewhat conflicting requirements with equal usage.

Use as a travel and artsy camera, and use as an astro camera for widefield astro landscapes and milky way shots on a star tracker, and occasional prime focus stuff. I have an ASI533MC Pro, I mostly use for that though.

As it is 50% for travel, I need something compact and light weight - 8 years ago I made the mistake of carting my Nikon D7000 on a trip to turkey - never again!!! I still have that camera, and haven't used it in years - just too heavy to cart around.

Happy for APSC - don't need full frame. Have no attachment to any particular brand - my Nikon stuff can stay in the cupboard if I go with another brand (worthless as a trade in or sale these days).

Budget around $2.5k for body and a single (kit?) lens to start,

Fujifilm XT-4?? Other options?

TIA
Gary

[mura_gadi (Steve)]

I find the link below very useful, gives you weight and a lot of other specs, easy to compare your D7000 to 100's of other cameras... The mirrorless line will offer the lightest camera generally.

https://www.digicamdb.com/compare/ni...0-vs-sony_a7c/

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Gary, I'd second the Fujifilm route, as they don't seem to filter out the Ha as aggressively as some other cameras.

Consider the X-S10 if you wanted to save a few $$ . The only down-side is that it doesn't have tethering capabilities IIRC, whereas the X-T<single_digit> series do... meaning you can hook them up to KStars or whatever and control from there.

[garymck (Gary)]

Thanks for the link Steve - very useful.

Dunk, I am considering the S-X10, ccould save enough to buy an extra lens - say a Samyang 12mm.
Seems that Fuji now has an app to automatically download to a PC/Mac

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-au/product...are/x-acquire/

Currently checking it out - seems to allow saving to a designated folder which mans could stack on the fly using other software. This may be enough.

cheers
Gary

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Gary, I have the Samyang 12mm and it’s not bad, but very wide so a bit of a one trick pony.

Sigma and Tokina, amongst others, have started on lenses for Fujifilm X mount now, so there is becoming more choice than OEM.

Of course, with a cheap adapter, you can use Canon EF lenses too…and others, depending on what adapter you get. For example, I use a Samyang 135mm with my FujiX which is manual focus and aperture anyhow, no loss

[garymck (Gary)]

Dunk,
have been reading about tethering issues with Fujifilm cameras, seems the X-S10 isn't compatible with anything I can find other than the limited support in the Fuji app. The X-T4 is supposed to be useable in Indi/Kstars. Can you confirm that it works? I really want a Fuji camera but if there is no way to tether it and have full control, then it is a bust for me and I'll have to rethink camera choice.

Gary

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Gary, check out the gPhoto doc - this is the library that most linux-based software will use to connect to cameras that have remote functionality:

http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/

I feel it's somewhat of a missed opportunity that Fujifilm reserve that capability for only the top-tier of their cameras - basically the "Pro" models, and the X-T3/X-T4, whereas pretty much any low-end Canon DSLR will work :/

I use an old X-A3 which has no remote capability, other than a plugged-in intervalometer which I use for longer exposures - all the recent models have a built-in intervalometer though, so they don't need an external.

Both the X-T3 and X-T4 use the IMX571 sensor - the X-T3 was the first camera on the market to use it. It is also used in other models, such as the X-T30 since.