First long exp shot with 7D

[rogerg (Roger)]

G'day all,

It's been a long time between images that I've posted here. Thought I'd share my first long exposureshot with my 7D! Tonight I decided to throw the 7D on the back of the LX and take some easy snaps to see what I got. I was quite impressed with the results considering the ambient temp was as low as 25 degrees and as high as 28 degrees.

I tried my 50mm USM @ F/1.4, but that gave pretty awful stars, so then moved on to my Pentax 28mm F/2.8 and that was quite nice, but I thought I'd zoom in a little, so switched to the 70-200 F/4 @ 200mm and took this snap. The others were 30 sec (only realised after some time I could do long exp via the PC connection - I don't have a bulb cable yet. I've got some other 5 min shots now and an 8min shot I could combine with this, but was processing this while they were being captured

This is a single 5 minute exposure @ 1600 ISO at ambient temp about 25-28 degrees, at F/4.

http://www.rogergroom.com/items/2010...ebula_canon_7d

The image is quite noisy as you'd expect for such warm conditions. I was happy to see reasonable detail still shown though.

It was refreshingly easy to take the photograph - easy to frame using the large and bright view finder of the 7D, easy to focus using live view, easy to take long exposure because of the wonderful LX which "just works", etc. Quite enjoyable short 2 hours of messing around

I have been doing lots of landscape photography with the 7D but haven't done much astro due to the moon and other commitments. It's a stunning camera for landscape & nature shots, feel like I finally have my wings back after they were clipped by the 350D when moving from film.

Edit... Just noticed when I packed up for the night that there's a thin layer of cloud over the whole sky (can see it now that the moon has risen). That won't have helped things!

Roger.

[Tilt (Michael)]

Looks like a good start Roger, I'm sure when you stack 30 x 5min subs you will see an improvement btw, I recommend Images Plus camera control for simple and easy DSLR imaging.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Very Nice Roger, I love the field of view, it encompasses two very large nebulas in Orion very nicely. I can't wait to see a stack of images with some short exposures to control the core of M42.

Very nice.

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by Tilt

Looks like a good start Roger, I'm sure when you stack 30 x 5min subs you will see an improvement btw, I recommend Images Plus camera control for simple and easy DSLR imaging.

Thanks for your reply I prefer CCDSoft for control of my DSLR, as it's what I'm used to using .. I'll be using canon's software to control it until the CCDSoft driver is upgraded to handle the 7D (fingers crossed it will be).

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

Lovely! Great FOV. Nicely done..

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by Hagar

Very Nice Roger, I love the field of view, it encompasses two very large nebulas in Orion very nicely. I can't wait to see a stack of images with some short exposures to control the core of M42.

Thanks My problem is I quickly move on to new targets... but I will have to try hard to force myself to go back and do a more comprehensive job of the field It is a nice FOV, agreed.

Originally Posted by CoolhandJo

Lovely! Great FOV. Nicely done..

Thanks

[zipdrive (Dave)]

Very impressive camera Roger
Even captured the horsehead with unmodded camera?

[RB (Andrew)]

Congrats on your new camera Roger.
I look forward to your photos with it.

I absolutely love my new 7D, it's got all the features I wanted in a crop body and I can't wait to get some free time to do some serious shooting with it.
It's a great upgrade from my old trusty 20D.
Although I don't plan on doing much astro work with the 7D, I may give it a try.

The build quality, frame rate and it's IQ are all excellent.
Eventually I'll be selling my old 5D as well and upgrading that to the 5DII so I'll have one APS-C and one FF for all my terrestrial needs.

Cheers and clear skies.

[StarGazing (Alex)]

Very nice field of view Roger, best of luck with future images.

Alex.

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by zipdrive

Very impressive camera Roger
Even captured the horsehead with unmodded camera?

Yeah, It's not too hard to pick it up, I think I have several shots taken with my 350D where it shows up, but it is hard to get sharp detail in it, very hard in fact

Originally Posted by RB

Congrats on your new camera Roger.
I look forward to your photos with it.

I absolutely love my new 7D...

Agree, the 7D has brilliant features. The dials, buttons, controls, all just in the right place. All you mentioned plus it's awsome view finder, so large and bright compared to the 350D, it's great to be able to quickly and accurately manually focus on subjects again

My 7D will largely be used for landscape/macro/etc, I expect to have my 350D modified this year and continue using it for astro. I do expect to do quite a bit of wide field static tripod kind of shots, startrails, "night landscapes" etc with the 7D.

Originally Posted by StarGazing

Very nice field of view Roger, best of luck with future images.

Alex.

Thanks

[telecasterguru (Frank)]

Roger,

Very good start with the new camera. I'm impressed.


Frank