appreciate if you can advise a high pixel camera with manual and/or very long shutter speeds possible.

i intend to use the camera for astrophotography and because of most extreme low light conditions, i need exposure times as long as possible, and/or possibility to manually open and close the shutter.

appreciate yr advise.

sincerely, rob van damme.

-- rob van damme (rvandg@yahoo.com), February 27, 2000

Answers

Rodger's right (see below). Essentially all digicams have noise problems when used for very long exposures. Surprisingly (given it's price), the camera we've seen that did the best job on long exposures was the Casio QV-8000. They have some sort of fancy noise-suppression technique that *really* cuts the noise. That said, I don't think it's going to get you into the realm you're needing for astrophotography...

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), March 01, 2000.

Please be aware. Digital cameras when used for long exposures (more than a few seconds) begin to develop electronic noise in their images. Different cameras handle this noise differently but all begin to lose resolution because the internal software needs to remove the noise from the final image. This is due to the CCD heating up because of the extended application of electrical power. Observatories use digital images which are liquid cooled for this reason. Chemical photography does not have this problem (film).

The new Nikon CP990 (3.34 megapixel camera) is said to have a standard ISO rating of 100 and have the ablitity to record images for as long as 8 seconds AND have a bulb mode. However, this camera is not yet in production so the quality of the images when captured in this manner cannot be confirmed. It is scheduled to be released in April.

-- Mark P (digismurf@yahoo.com), February 27, 2000.

Current digicams aren't useful for astronomy work except for bright objects. Recommend that you pick up an astronomy magazine and check out the adds for true astronomical digital photo devices. They have a means of cooling which allows for extremely long exposures. They are similar to those used at atronomical observatories and have come down greatly in price in the past few year--very affordable for amateur astronomers.

Rodger

-- Rodger Carter (rodger.carter@wpafb.af.mil), February 29, 2000.