Kurt: Get the XSi, it is better suited to astrophotography then the XS and is a better camera in general. Better yet, for a little more get either a T1i or a T2i. They would be better yet and still and are in the same price range although a bit more. Either of those will have a Digic 4 processor as opposed older Digic III in the XSi and XS which doesn't handle noise as well as the Digic 4 chip. That will give a lot of extra flexibility when shooting astro-photos as well as day to day photos. Bob -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of David Rankin Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 8:52 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Purchase advice on Canon Digital Rebel XS, XSi Kurt, I shoot with the XSi and love it. Its an awesome camera. I have one for astro and one for general purposes. They are easy to modify to shoot infrared as well. I've seen some comparisons on cloudy nights dslr forum and the XSi has a better looking dark frame than the XS. Both are good cameras, and the live view function makes a huge difference when focusing. I am not sure what you mean when you say it only holds 4 shots? They come with a memory slot where you can put a high speed SD cards. I shoot with a 16 gig card and I can get over 1000 raw images on it. If you hook it up to computer to shoot, you can get as many images as battery life will allow, or hard drive space. The camera comes with software that allows you to control it from a computer. If you were wanting to do star trails, you could just set it up, then tell the software to shoot a certain number of pictures at a certain exposure length, and go to bed. The next morning you would have the pictures you specified. (I have an AC adapter for mine so I dont have to worry about battery life when doing astro work). Good luck on your DSLR purchase :) I have seen them go cheap on KSL. Cheers David On 10/30/2010 7:17 PM, Canopus56 wrote:
I am getting ready to buy my first DSLR and I would like to buy a Rebel XS or XSi. This would be a general purpose camera but I want to cross-purpose it as an astronomy camera. I feel the cheaper XS model meets my needs.
I am unclear on:
1) For time lapse night time photography of a large sky section with the 15mm lens, how do you get the images off the camera in real time since it only holds 4 shots?
2) Other advice of comments are the purchase are welcome.
Thanks - Kurt
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