Sony the Star Eater

[Ian]

Astrophotographers shooting with Sony, any experience with this?

https://petapixel.com/2017/05/04/star-eater-issue-no-longer-recommend-sony-cameras-astrophotography/

[Jerry Adams]

That’s pretty cool

Do they track the rotation of the earth?  Seems like you would have to do that for even a little long exposure times.

You could look for asteroids or super novas

[Ian]

Pentax has a feature where you can get longer exposures because the in body stabilization (sensor moves) will track the stars.  Sony has offered IBIS on their more recent mirrorless cameras but I’m not aware of a star tracking option.

Many cameras without IBIS can take star shots with a wide aperture and slower shutter speed (rule of 600).

[Tom D.]

I have a telescope with an equatorial mount that can turns with the rotation of the earth. If I ever wanted to get back into astrophotography, I’d mount the camera on top. But I haven’t done any in a long time.

 

I can see where the noise reduction in the firmware update would screw up starfields and the like. It’s too bad there’s no way to disable it. I’ve not tried any with my A6300.

[chris smead]

I love my A7rii for milkyway timelapses.  I’ve had some great results with sony’s 28mmF2 lens.   I did a little denoising and sharpening in post but it didnt need much.

[Ian]

Are you running the current firmware Chris?  If not, you may want to do some research and see if the problem has been resolved before updating your camera.

[Bruce Tolley]

Cannot you turn off the noise reduction on a Sony? On my Olympus, I have several settings for Noise Reduction and Noise Filtering.

[Ian]

Bruce,

I assume the A7 line does, but not 100% sure as I have the a6000.

[Yuri R]

Of course you can turn it off, but  it is an additional algorithm used when data is written from buffer into the card. I think the Noise reduction discussed at PetaPixel is done before that and can’t be disabled. So it is in effect a 2 stage NR if you have one in camera also enabled.

 

And by the way – Sony always had IBIS since the mount came from Minolta which was first to use it in consumer grade cameras. It wasn’t introduced with mirrorless, but was there all along.  Admittedly, Nikon and Canon had VR earlier, but it was lens based.

[chris smead]

Oops…sorry for the slow response.  Yes I keep my camera + lens firmware current.  I’m kind of OCD like that.   No issues.  Yes you can turn off the noise reduction.  I use neatvideo to clean up noise in post.  In general I try to reduce noise in the field by keeping the ISO as low as I can.  The end of this promo video thing I made has several astro shots I did, all on Sony cameras.   https://youtu.be/ZLjhRUyZJa4

The first was a Sony a7rii w/ Zeiss Batis 18.  F2.8, ISO 1600, shutter 15.

The second and third shots were a Sony a7rii w/ sony 28mm, F2.0, ISO 1600, shutter 15. (I think)

The last was actually a sony rx100!!!  F2.something, ISO 3200, shutter 20 seconds if I recall.

All were sharpened in post w/ Final Cut Pro, color/exposure graded w/ Color Finale, and denoised w/ neatvideo.   The 3rd timelapse I added the “trails” effect in post to create the weird star trails.

 

[Author]

Posts