Canon 500/4.5L vs Astro Physics T-scope

[Percy]

Lots of people have asked on the astronomy forums, how well can a high end L lens do against a t-scope?

One of the fun things about being a canon pro member...you get to do all sorts of tryouts and comparos. In this case, the Canon 500 f/4.5L with a 2xII extender versus an Astro Physics telescope. First up...the Astro Physics. 1040mm focal length at f/8 with Canon 8.2mp camera.

[Percy]

Next up...the Canon 500 4.5L lens, 2xII extender. 1000mm at f/9. This lens is no longer made, but then again, neither is the Astro Physics. PLENTY of difference. The pics were shot literally within seconds of each other, identical sky conditions. These were the absolute sharpest of the batch, that is, sharpest of the canon vs sharpest of the AP. Note that the AP is much whiter than the Canon. Canon lenses have a yellowish balance to them, but the newer IS lenses seem a bit more neutral. Also note the amount of detail present in the AP that isn't there with the Canon.

Many bird photographers will opt for the Canon 500 lens due to the autofocus. You'll see me in the field hefting a 17 pound telescope, carbon fiber tripod, etc to get the best possible image quality.

Convinced?

Percy

[rocket]

wow how expensive is a setup like go for(lens)

[Percy]

Strangely enough, they're about equal in price...about 5 grand. BUT, the Astro Physics has a 6 year waiting list before you can even order one, and it's optics are among THE best in the world, bar none. Maybe only one other company can compete with AP and that's TEC. Telescope Engineering Company out of Colorado. Zeiss DID make telescopes at one time but ditched the telescope (refractor) industry in a massive "attitude" exit. The Zeiss scopes has very expensive accessories and weren't very functional. You'd end up paying $$$ dollars for a simple adapter...absolutely stupid.

Canon makes the lenses for a japanese telescope manufacturer named Takahashi. The Takahashi scopes are quite good. There has been some issues with color correction (doublets), lens cell problems (pinched optics, etc), but they're still nice. The AP is a triplet design. Canon and Takahashi will NEVER list the actual color corrections. They're all theoretical.

AP scopes will sell for MORE than their original price. In 1991, the scope that I shoot with, you could buy that for 2400. It's over 5k today. Also, they had other telescopes, a 180mm f/7 (over 1200mm, 7 inch diameter lens) that sold for about 9 grand back in '91. It's now selling for over 35 grand. The grand daddy of them all, a 206/8 (that's an 8 inch diameter lens!!!) originally sold for 12,500. It's now well over 100,000!!!! NO OTHER TELESCOPE COMPANY WILL APPRECIATE IN VALUE. (Telescope Engineering Company might though!)

The main thing that you're paying for when buying a Canon lens (newer EF design) is the autofocus capability, the rugged build quality and the ability to change the f/stop as well as a few other minor goodies.

Percy

[rocket]

that is way out of my price range. One question i do have that may help me is how do you get the sharp and colorful quality out of some of the pictures I see on the forum. I have a canon rebel xt and can not compare my editing from adobe cs2 to the ones i see on here. Thank you for your time

[Percy]

Originally Posted by rocket

that is way out of my price range. One question i do have that may help me is how do you get the sharp and colorful quality out of some of the pictures I see on the forum. I have a canon rebel xt and can not compare my editing from adobe cs2 to the ones i see on here. Thank you for your time

One thing that I always do is to shoot RAW and then use a converter. Starting off with a higher bit format will yield better results than just simply shooting JPEG and downloading it from the camera. Once you resize the picture, you can UNSHARP MASK in photoshop to help the sharpness. The color and punch are pretty much up to you. Since I'm using Capture One/Phase One, the steps are a bit different. Hope this helps...

Percy

[rocket]

I have shot raw before and my cs2 actually has the converter but i dont really see a major difference. But i will try to shot it in raw format next time and use the sharpness next time on the raw portion of cs2. Thanks again

[rocket]

here goes one i shot in raw format and adjusted on the converter

[Percy]

Looks like combo of handshake and slow shutter speed. What results do you have in mind? (A link to a picture would help) then I can tell you what they did.

Percy

[rocket]

its a tread on here that states pics from a chicago cloudy day.RaynArt is the Members name

[Percy]

Think you should PM Raynart about it...since he's the one who shot the photos!

Percy