EOS Ra: A great Full Frame Astrophotography mirrorless camera...

Hi Marco,

Amazing photos!

Hi Randy! Still Early Days with the Ra but I'm spending tomorrow shooting daylight indoor shots with the camera. That touch-bar is a bit pesky....
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Tonight I fooled around with highlights, levels, color saturation and contrast on one of the JPEGs from the 50mm lens for around 20 minutes in Photoshop, and I was able to squeeze out some pretty looking results that might have more experienced members cringing. For a single exposure in JPEG from this camera it's not bad at all for a 10 second exposure. The only thing I added was a very small adjustment to the blue star (Rho Ophiuchi) and bright yellow/orange star 'Antares' (which was distorted slightly from both the aperture on this lens and star trailing). They didn't look right so I restructured them. Everything else was essentially captured in the shot and was teased out between eating a cheeseburger and watching the news tonight. I'm sure Mr Roger Clark has an embolism whenever he sees my White Balance choices - so I might avoid the Astro forum until I can nail the WB more effectively. At the very least, the EOS Ra has killed any desire in me to continue using Tungsten WB for Astro (which is good).
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EOS Ra + EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens - 10 second exposure
Captured in JPEG with Auto WB.- Enhanced in PS.

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Thank you for sharing the detailed explanation in these photos. I know it is time consuming but a great benefit for those who are interested in this type of photography.

Randy

Thanks, I just ran the new 1.6.0 Firmware on the EOS Ra camera but I think that DXOMark have nailed the problem already - with their testing of the EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM lens some time ago. I was using this lens on an EOS 6D (FF) DSLR for my own Astro and occasionally on APS-C cameras. However, on the 5D IV the Vignetting is very strong when wide open. Brutally so. On the 6D it's actually less. On an APS-C it's hardly there at all. I think it's safe to say that the EOS R cameras are going to present the vignetting at maximum with the aperture wide (eg f/1.4 to f/2.8). I'll need to run some new tests but the score from DXOMark shows just how hideous the vignetting is on their charts. This would have to be the worst performance for vignetting I've seen on a moderately recent Canon lens in the L-series. I guess that's the answer and I guess Canon will eventually release an RF 24mm f/1.4 someday that won't vignette so harshly. Not that I enjoy buying new lenses when the old should work perfectly well. I'll be in touch with Canon later today to see what they have to say. Check out how rough the DXO folks were on the vignetting of this lens!...
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The horrific vignetting from this lens varies from camera to camera.  The EOS R and the EOS 5D IV are likely to be suffering the most when using this lens.  Even the 6D is slightly less worse off.  APS-C isn't really affected at all.

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