dark current noise

Astrotripper wrote:

alexisgreat wrote:

Real world comparisons posted here with different Oly cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57025873

I know there are some there from the EM1 and EM10- not sure if any from the EM5 are in there but they should be.

I posted that in a thread in the astrophotography forum because people were telling me that MFT cameras have too much dark noise to be used for astrophotography. They told me ISO above 800 cannot be used. I found images of very good quality all the way to ISO 3200 (at 30 second exposures) and ISO 1600 (1 minute exposures x10 stack) with both the EM1 and the EM10. The person who was saying that MFT cameras have too much dark noise to be useful above ISO 800 for long exposures has an EPL-5, that's why I was wondering if there is a difference with the smaller bodies vs the larger ones- but he also had dark frame subtraction turned off.

It's a usual trade-off of a smaller sensor. You will obviously get more noise from it. But at least for astrophotography, you can counter that by stacking. Got more noise? Acquire more data for stacking. You can get really good results from MFT cameras if you get the hang of it. Obviously, optics is a very important aspect as well. It's not gonna work if all you have is a slow kit zoom lens.

You know, there's always something better. And at the end of that road, is dedicated equipment that costs thousand of dollars per piece

Yep, plus 4/3 sensors aren't much smaller than APS-C plus I can argue that 4:3 aspect ratio is better for AP!  I got this camera firstly because I wanted a really lightweight combo to couple to my telescope(s) and the weight of the EPL-6 is almost the same as a CCD camera (since you dont need a flash or an EVF to be attached all the time.)  I need to get 4/3 attachments to connect it to a telescope though and I want to know if I can use my 1.25" light pollution filters with it without much vignetting.  How close to the sensor can one get the filter using telescope attachments? I know the flange distance is 19.25mm but I'm hoping that I can get the sensor to filter distance to about 35mm when using my f/6.3 reducer/corrector and to about 54mm when using my Nexstar 8 at f/10.  That would mean no vignetting.