Nikon D810A

[Paul2660]

I just saw that Nikon has announced a A version of the D810 for astro photography. Besides the I/R cut filter it has a virtual live view mode and a built in timer up to 15 minutes. 

Now I just wish they would make a fast wide without coma aberration.

Paul

[Alan Smallbone]

Interesting that they chose to go down this route. I am sure they will sell a few of them. For wide angle shots the Ha response will help a little but in wide sky astro landscapes the Ha regions will be small. The advantage of the sensitivity will be with a telescope or longer focal lengths. The you have to ask yourself if you are using a telescope with a large corrected field then why not use a cooled camera with greater QE without the Bayer filters? I guess you will get the mpix but then that is pretty hefty investment. Even with a custom white balance the daylight imaging never looks quite right. I have used modified cameras before and found that for longer focal lengths the cooled ccd will be better but a dslr is ideal for starscapes, wide field landscapes at night.

Oh well just some ramblings.

Alan

(I deleted the thread in compact cameras as that was the wrong place for it.)

[Paul2660]

Alan

Do you see any advantage to the 810A for non telescope night photography?  It would be great if they would add the timer to the 810 as then the need for a external intervalometer would possibly be eliminated.

Paul

[fdisilvestro]

I wonder if this camera will let the user disable the "hot pixel suppression" NR and also give the user options on how to use the dark frame, such as one dark frame for a series of exposures and store it as a separate file.

[shadowblade]

Can this camera do double duty as a normal camera (i.e. function as a normal D810) or will it only do a good job with astrophotography?

When shooting through a telescope, do you have the image circle and necessary focal length to even take advantage of the full frame sensor?

Also, I hope this is a special, on-the-side thing, rather than Nikon's answer to the 5Ds - that would be truly lame!

[ErikKaffehr]

The addition of long exposure times would be welcome on any camera! A small software change.

I don't think anything of this is a response to Canon. The response will come in due time. Just to say, a sensor/camera system seems to take something like three years to develop. So I don't think we see camera vendors responding to each other. But I guess Nikon has pretty good ideas about what Canon has in development and the other way round.

Best regards
Erik

Can this camera do double duty as a normal camera (i.e. function as a normal D810) or will it only do a good job with astrophotography?

When shooting through a telescope, do you have the image circle and necessary focal length to even take advantage of the full frame sensor?

Also, I hope this is a special, on-the-side thing, rather than Nikon's answer to the 5Ds - that would be truly lame!

[Telecaster]

Can this camera do double duty as a normal camera (i.e. function as a normal D810) or will it only do a good job with astrophotography?

When shooting through a telescope, do you have the image circle and necessary focal length to even take advantage of the full frame sensor?

Also, I hope this is a special, on-the-side thing, rather than Nikon's answer to the 5Ds - that would be truly lame!

Yeah, you should be able to take "normal" photos with the camera…but because it'll have extended longer wavelength sensitivity (Hydrogen alpha emits light with a wavelength of ~655 nanometers) its color rendition will be affected somewhat. You could use low-cut filters to counteract this, but really this is a specialized camera. Definitely not any kind of answer to the new Canon. 

An 8" f/10 scope, a fairly typical option, has a focal length of ~2000mm. The image circle will depend on your particular gear.

-Dave-

[shadowblade]

Yeah, you should be able to take "normal" photos with the camera…but because it'll have extended longer wavelength sensitivity (Hydrogen alpha emits light with a wavelength of ~655 nanometers) its color rendition will be affected somewhat. You could use low-cut filters to counteract this, but really this is a specialized camera. Definitely not any kind of answer to the new Canon. 

An 8" f/10 scope, a fairly typical option, has a focal length of ~2000mm. The image circle will depend on your particular gear.

-Dave-

I'm guessing that sort of scope would be mainly for small, bright deep-space objects (e.g. planets) rather than for larger, dimmer objects (e.g. most nebulae)? Although I suppose you could take multiple shots using an equatorial tracking mount and stitch them.

[Alan Smallbone]

Alan

Do you see any advantage to the 810A for non telescope night photography?  It would be great if they would add the timer to the 810 as then the need for a external intervalometer would possibly be eliminated.

Paul

Paul,

I really do not see any real advantage. Yes you will get some extra reds in the nebulas. If you only did nighttime photography then it might be worth it. I think it would be hard to justify if you only did a little bit of nighttime imaging. Color balancing daytime photography will be difficult, you would need to add filters and custom white balances.

Alan

[Alan Smallbone]

Can this camera do double duty as a normal camera (i.e. function as a normal D810) or will it only do a good job with astrophotography?

When shooting through a telescope, do you have the image circle and necessary focal length to even take advantage of the full frame sensor?

Also, I hope this is a special, on-the-side thing, rather than Nikon's answer to the 5Ds - that would be truly lame!

As mentioned you could use a filter and or custom white balances for daytime photography, but the extra IR sensitivity can be problematic to deal with for daylight images. The raw image will have a very definite red cast to it.

There are telescopes with a large image circle but they are premium type scopes, minimum $4K and up. An 8" f10 sct will not have a large enough image circle, you will need to use a high end refractor, like a Takahashi FSQ or similar or a 10" or greater mirror scope with a well corrected field, like a Planewave, or RC type telescope, and even some of those require field flatteners. A large mirror scope like a Planewave you are well north of $9k for optics. Then a mount for scope like that will run you $10K or more..... that is the high end of things.

You could do quite a bit with high end lenses and a small mount that was carefully aligned but for anything less than wide field you would need guiding for long exposures.

Astrophotography is very difficult, complex, expensive and at times one of the most frustrating types of photography and other times it is amazing to see what comes out of it. So many variables etc.
So for me a camera like this has limited use, it is a niche camera if you have a lot of money to blow or just like having extra toys. It will add some red sensitivity to details whether it is worth it for you depends on how much of that kind of photography you do.

Canon had two astronomy dslrs, the 20Da and 60Da. There are also a number of places that will convert other dslrs for astrophotography, either removing the Ir cut filter and replacing it with glass or adding a new cut off type filter. I don't know how many they really sold, I am sure it was more a niche offering. You see modified camera for sale quit often on Astromart.

Alan

[Paul2660]

Paul,

I really do not see any real advantage. Yes you will get some extra reds in the nebulas. If you only did nighttime photography then it might be worth it. I think it would be hard to justify if you only did a little bit of nighttime imaging. Color balancing daytime photography will be difficult, you would need to add filters and custom white balances.

Alan

Alan,

Thanks, I figured that in daytime the images would present their own set of issues, and at 4K it's more than I want to spend (I am rounding up).  I do love the fact that Nikon has at least proven they can make a camera with a timer longer than 30 seconds.  This should be something that firmware could add to the existing D810 just like Magic Lantern did for Canon.  Having a built in intervalometer and a camera that can only time to 30" is pretty worthless all of my nighttime timelaspe work stacking work.

Paul

[NancyP]

Cooled CCD camera with filters would seem to be a good way to go. The filters are cheaper for the small CCD chips, anyway.

I am not getting into sophisticated astrophotography until I retire, anyway. Right now I live in the middle of a large city in a frequently cloudy climate. I have fun going to darker state parks and shooting wide field astro-landscape images.

I think that the conversion services also have full-spectrum and true IR-only users. The APS-C Canons can be converted to full spectrum and be used with clip-in filters at the lens flange level and EF lenses.  Essentially the clip-in filter takes up the space between smaller mirror and lens flange that would have been assigned to EF-S lens design back elements. PS getting the clip-in filter in and out is a PITA, but only a small PITA.

[AreBee]

Paul,

Having a built in intervalometer and a camera that can only time to 30" is pretty worthless all of my nighttime timelaspe work stacking work.

I appreciate that it would be nice to have an intervalometer in-body, but failing that, what is it that you do that a remote like the MC-36 could not solve?

[Paul2660]

I use the MC-36 and a few clones.  It does the job for sure. I have just found it strange that every camera company now seems to have a  hilt in intervlometer but they are all handicapped by the camera timer stopping at 30 seconds. Based on the 810a now going further I have to assume that it's not a big deal to make this work. Most likely a firmware change.

Paul

[Alan Smallbone]

I guess it is tradition to have the 30 second max and for older cameras that was certainly an issue to go longer, but then why not use bulb and an intervelometer? That is the ultimate in convenience, people will never be happy with a fixed interval, if you make it 10 second intervals someone will want 5 second, etc. So the 30 second limit and then having bulb is the best compromise.

Alan

[jeremyrh]

Hmm ...  for that sort of money (or less), surely you can get into dedicated astro cameras, with filter wheels, Peltier sensor cooling etc.....