Jimmykjimmy Posted September 30, 2019 Share #1 Posted September 30, 2019 Advertisement (gone after registration) I’m considering using my Leica SL and the 24-90 mm for astrophotography. I would use it atop the ioptron that rotates with the sky taking photos of either planets or constellations. So I’m interested to know if anyone has tried this and the success. No adapters are necessary since the camera sits on the ioptron and rotates with the sky..thanks in advance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 30, 2019 Posted September 30, 2019 Hi Jimmykjimmy, Take a look here Leica SL for astrophotography. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
T25UFO Posted September 30, 2019 Share #2 Posted September 30, 2019 Not sure how this will work when you can't disable LENR. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarkis Posted September 30, 2019 Share #3 Posted September 30, 2019 We are not able to disable the long exposure noise reduction on the SL. Any shot with a shutter speed of one second or longer has an equal length blackout period. I keep hoping that Leica will address this through a firmware update but they haven't. Just an FYI. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmykjimmy Posted September 30, 2019 Author Share #4 Posted September 30, 2019 Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpittal Posted September 30, 2019 Share #5 Posted September 30, 2019 Mechanically this setup should not be a problem, as long as you can balance the guider and camera rig (it is a bit heavy). Without sensor cooling, LENR is used to cancel noise from sensor heating. It just takes twice as long. I typically shoot 30 to 50 frames of an object with about 30 sec subs (so I can remove frames with problems such as plane/satellite/cloud trails) and it takes up to an hr per object. Separate dark frames will not be a solution as they will not be temperature regulated; I think you may be best off with LENR with the dark frames taken close to the same temp as the light frames. Some of the nicest wide field shots I have seen are taken with cooled astrophotography cameras and medium format lenses with no LENR and separate temperature regulated dark frames, but uncooled CMOS cameras (esp full field) are also very good. I use modified Sony cameras and Batis lenses with LENR on; in the past I have used M240 and m lenses. I am no expert and have a long way to go, but am having fun. Use what you have; later you can get specialized stuff. Your largest problem will probably be focusing on dim stars, esp without a flip screen. I use adhesive hand warmers on the focus ring to lock focus after you confirm all is well (and also helps with dew fogging on the front of the lens). Again, I suggest you use what you have to try it out. I think LENR is the least of your worries. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared Posted September 30, 2019 Share #6 Posted September 30, 2019 You will face a couple challenges. The first, as others have pointed out, is that you can’t disable LENR. This isn’t a disaster, though, since you would probably want dark frames in any event, and at least this way they will be temperature matched. The second issue you might run into is zoom creep. With the lens pointed generally “up”, if you aren’t exposing at 24mm the lens may have a tendency to sloooowwwly creep towards 24mm. A little gaffer’s tape on the zoom ring can take care of this. The next issue is that the lens is a little slow and has some astigmatism in the corners wide open. You may find yourself shooting at f/5.6 or so for reasonable corner sharpness, and that means you will want a fair amount of integration time (total exposure time across all your exposures). The next issue is finding infinity focus on a focus-by-wire lens. Since stars are essentially perfect points, it’s critical to nail focus. The Moon works well if it’s up, but it generally won’t be up if you are imaging deep sky objects since it creates so much light pollution. You can try putting the AF in manual mode and then using full magnification on a bright star. Distant trees sometimes work as well or distant buildings. The key point is don’t trust auto focus. The last issue, like the LENR issue, is that Leica doesn’t want you to be able to take a technically bad image, so they severely limit the length of your exposures as you raise the gain. I forget what the max exposure time is on the SL when you set it to, say, ISO 1600, but it may well be shorter than the optimal value for your tracker. That means more short exposures rather than fewer long exposures which means increased read noise. Oh, well. You will do what you can, I’m sure. I don’t mean to discourage you too much. It is definitely possible to get good results with the SL (though an adapted M lenses or the new SL Summicrons may work better than the zoom). Give it a try and see. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted October 1, 2019 Share #7 Posted October 1, 2019 Advertisement (gone after registration) The ISO/exposure time argument could be moot, as I believe the SL to be at least partly ISO invariant, allowing you to raise the gain in postprocessing rather than in the camera. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared Posted October 1, 2019 Share #8 Posted October 1, 2019 6 hours ago, jaapv said: The ISO/exposure time argument could be moot, as I believe the SL to be at least partly ISO invariant, allowing you to raise the gain in postprocessing rather than in the camera. I took a look at Bill’s data on Photons to Photos for the SL. I’d probably recommend imaging at ISO 800 or so. That leaves a maximum exposure time of 30 minutes which is ample, even for dark sky sites, to be shot noise limited and is probably quite a bit longer than the iOptron tracker can keep things aligned. In short, I agree with you, Jaapv. The OP can safely ignore my previous comment on exposure length. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
su25 Posted December 9, 2019 Share #9 Posted December 9, 2019 Can LENR be turned off with a firmware upgrade? Now that SL2 has this ability, I see that Leica has changed its mindset on this function. And, hope this function will be availble with a new firmware update for SL 🤞 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
m9photo Posted December 10, 2019 Share #10 Posted December 10, 2019 21 hours ago, su25 said: Can LENR be turned off with a firmware upgrade? Now that SL2 has this ability, I see that Leica has changed its mindset on this function. And, hope this function will be availble with a new firmware update for SL 🤞 With SL has been officially discontinued, I don't think Leica bothers to have this firmware on LENR. To OP @Jimmykjimmy Couple months ago I was in Banff, I was foolishly bringing the SL for astro would be great idea, but alas I didn't know anything about LENR back then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
su25 Posted December 10, 2019 Share #11 Posted December 10, 2019 I missed the part of SL being discontinued.... yes, no firmware updates can be expected ...☹️ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanhulsenbeek Posted January 13, 2020 Share #12 Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) I am using a SL and, to be frank, LENR does not bother me. In fact the results are moderately clean and very useable. I purchased earlier this year the Venus Laowa 12mm/2.8 Zero Distorsion (plus adapter) and am quite happy with it. (Now there even is a Laowa 15mm/2.0 ZD !). To show what you can get I attached two pictures, made some weeks ago in Egypt. The picture with the trees is one single exposure, at 2.8 for 20 seconds. That is about the max to avoid trails. The other picture, next post, is a stack of ten pictures 10 second exposures from a rigid tripod, made with a wonderful (Apple) program called Starry Landscape Stacker. I have the same Ioptron, but I see its use more with tele shots of details, e.g. nebula's, than with full skies. Plus one needs lots of patience :). An extremely useful App is Photopills, which goes with a most informative website: https://www.photopills.com/articles/star-trails-photography-guide Stacked picture next post! Sander, Amsterdam Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Edited January 13, 2020 by vanhulsenbeek 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/302007-leica-sl-for-astrophotography/?do=findComment&comment=3890481'>More sharing options...
vanhulsenbeek Posted January 13, 2020 Share #13 Posted January 13, 2020 Post #2 Stacked: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/starry-landscape-stacker/id550326617?mt=12 Sander, Amsterdam Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/302007-leica-sl-for-astrophotography/?do=findComment&comment=3890489'>More sharing options...
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