Best starter lens for Astro photography?

Gday guys, I'm looking at buying a new lens, and want some input on the what everyone thinks the best bang for buck astro lens is, I have a few lens, but need something wide, I have a 17-40 but just isn't wide enough to get the milky way in. I have a few in my price range. what is everyones thoughts? I have a 50D

Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX AF 11-16mm f2.8 II
Tokina AT-X 120 Pro DX AF 11-20mm f2.8
Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM
Sigma 10-20mm F3.5 EX DC HSM
Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM
Samyang 10mm f2.8 ED AS NCS CS

Heya,

I'd put you on a Rokinon 16mm F2 if you were going to stay on APS-C for sure. That extra stop of aperture means 1 less stop of ISO needed and that matters on that 50D.

Ideally though, a tracker for the cost of a lens would allow any lens to work.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #17867608
Heya,

I'd put you on a Rokinon 16mm F2 if you were going to stay on APS-C for sure. That extra stop of aperture means 1 less stop of ISO needed and that matters on that 50D.

Ideally though, a tracker for the cost of a lens would allow any lens to work.

Very best,

yup, agreed

also consider the Samyang 14mm f2.8. An excellent wide angle lens


Dave

- Astro is all about low light and gathering of maximum amount of those tiny photons in shortest time so you need a WIDE "F", that is lower number.
- All your effort (That comes painful at times) would be useless if you don't have enough sharpness or instead have too much CA.

To make a long story short, do you a great favor and save you a tone of cash, only (I repeat ONLY) start with a Samyang/Rokinon 14mm 2.8 and don't listen to anyone else who may divert you attention or confuses you, Period.

Why? Not only this lens has all the two above features, it is produced for a variety of camera mounts, it is as sharp as you want, corner to corner, it is a Full Frame lens so when you grow, it accompanies you, has least noticeable vignette, but also it has one extremely important feature that makes it even above the several times more expensive Canons equivalent focal length L lens and that is it has one of the BEST comma control, second to none. And if you don't know what it is, just listen to others and you see it on every picture you take! I am surprised as to how Rokinon can make this lens and offer it so cheap! People who spent a fortune on Zeiss will hate me, but the so called "14mm Rokinon is the Zeiss for poor-man" notation is not true, because it is very comparable to Zeiss, with only major difference being very low price (tomatoes please !).

I will not add anymore with nonsense words or arguments like Rokinon 14 has Barrel Distortion, has no filter capability, is manual focus, no EXIF, no AF confirmation chips, blub blubbb, that will follow soon, and if you like confusion, wait, you will hear as much as you want.

Have fun and keep tract of your wallet. And don't forget, your best time in astrophotography comes during jet black cloudless nights under the vastest sky, rather than lengthy non sense discussions her. You want a tool to start it all and Samyang 14mm F2.8 is all you need for ultra wide Astrophotography. You can add tracker etc etc later as you interest continues and grows, with least damage to your bank account. My words comes from experience with no commercial interest & are warranted, so if not happy, return it!

I respect what samsen said, and agree IF you will only be using the Samyang/Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens purely for Astrophotography.

However, if you want to use your UWA lens for other usage then astrophotography, then I suggest you consider the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX II Digital Zoom Lens.

I have it and use it for both nightime and daytime, so having manual focus infinity at night is great, yet daytime autofocus when I need it is also great.

Look here for it's nightime and daytime images.... then you choose
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/gearinde​x.php?id=2471

I think the Samyang and Rokinon lenses are actually the same lens sold under different names.

But I would also suggest the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 for astrophotography.

With that said... I have the Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L USM II... but that's only because I use the lens for things other than astrophotography.

The Rokinon/Samyang is a completely manual lens -- no auto-anything... manual focus and it has a manual aperture ring to set the f-stop. For normal daytime shooting, you might want auto-focus and you would almost certainly want automatic aperture (they make a "chipped" version of the lens for an extra $200 premium that will "report" to the camera what f-stop it's using -- but you don't need it for image.) This is all fine for astrophotography since (a) you will be manually focusing the lens anyway and (b) you will almost certainly dial the aperture ring to "f/2.8" when you unpack the lens and then leave it there for the rest of it's life -- it may as well be welded in place for all we care because you'll trying to collect as much light as you can in as little time as possible to eliminate star trails.

That lens will let you take untracked exposures of about 30 seconds without star-elongation. To go longer you'd want a tracking head.

There's also a Rokinon 10mm f/2.8 which would give you a wider area of sky and increase the exposure time to about 40 seconds without tracking (the lens is about $100 more than the 14mm f/2.8)

If the camera isn't on a tracking head then you really want to keep that focal ratio down to f/2.8 or faster. An f/3.5 lens is 2/3rds of a stop slower -- meaning you'll need to exposure for 66% longer to compensate and if you don't have a tracking mount then shooting longer may not be an option.

If you have a tracking head then you no longer have to be in a big hurry to collect light and can relax the low focal-ratio requirements.

Can you guys please look at this thread and share your thoughts?

https://photography-on-the.net .../showthread.php?t=1​​485983

Thanks for your time.