Astrophotography lens recommendations for EOS R8

[luthar9366]

Hello everyone,

I just purchased a Canon EOS R8 and now I’m looking into purchasing my lens. I am a beginner into photography but I really want to focus on astrophotography. What lens would you recommend?

I currently have these two in mind but I want to make sure I am making the right choice.

Canon RF14-35mm F4 L

Canon RF100-400mm F5.6-8

Also, any advice on settings or how to begin my photography journey will be greatly appreciated!

[jrhoffman75]

What kind of astrophotography? Both lens could be appropriate.

Deep space objects you would want the telephoto lens. Star trails, Milky Way you would want a wide angle lens. If you don't have a different use planned for the 14mm lens you would do better/less cost on a MF faster lens like Rokinon 14mm f/2.8.

[ebiggs1]

"I currently have these two in mind but I want to make sure I am making the right choice.

Canon RF14-35mm F4 L or Canon RF100-400mm F5.6-8"

I am going to disagree just a bit with JRF and say neither of these lenses will be good for astrophotography. Of course you can use any lens to shoot the sky but there are a few that are best. The 100-400mm isn't quite big enough for near sky objects like the Moon with something in the 600mm range being better. But for deep space objects is isn't likely big enough since things are so far away. For those you really need an astro telescope with auto tracking.

By far the most popular lens for astro is the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 Lens. It is as are most all astrophotography lenses totally manual so you will need to learn how to use a fully manual lens. Now this is very general because each situation can be and will probably be different.

Example using a 14mm lens.

Example using a 300mm lens

That is C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) comet.

I was a member, founding member, of the local astronomy club where we had a 30" Newtonian reflector telescope but I am not active anymore and only shoot sparingly these days.

[DJ_aa7]

There are different types of astrophotography. If you are new, you'll likely be shooting the milky way first. For that you'll need a wide lens. Something in the 14mm range. 

I'm actually jumping from a 90d to r7 and don't have money for rf glass. But it's looking like I'm not even going to want to swap. I got the ef eos r adapter so i can use my current glass. But then realized they have a version with drop in filter capability.

As you first start shooting astro, you quickly realize that no matter where you go, it's nearly impossible to get rid of light pollution. So you start looking around for filters to get rid of the yellow glow at the horizon line. 

When you progress in astro, you then learn about modifying the camera sensor to capture ir light so you can capture the nebula light. Especially because at this point, you're now thirsty to progress into deep sky astro to take pictures of galaxies & nebula & planets. For which you're gonna definitely want/need moded cameras & ir filters.

I'm now in that stage. I want to improve my milky way photos and use filters to get rid of light pollution, as I'm learning about star tracking mounts so i can shoot deep sky with camera gear before making the jump to telescopes & astro dedicated cameras made for telescopes. 

So i recommend getting ef glass with the ef to r adapter. And you're gonna wanna still use the old camera body. For example, I'm shooting the Blood Moon (lunar eclipse) this Wednesday. I'm using my new r7 with my 400mm & 2x expander for close ups and my 90d with a Rokinon 14mm for a wide shot. 

I'll take basically a time lapse with the wide and in Photoshop stack the images to show all the phases of the eclipse in one pic over los Angeles City hall. Then imma swap the moon of the wide with the close up shoots and achieve a composite image with both the building and the moon in focus, going from full to partial to red and back again.

So your gonna need both lens types bro. Wide for milky and long for sun, moon, and deep sky astro. 

[justadude]

Some of my colleagues have already suggested the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens.  I'll add my two cents.

The Rokinon is an excellent choice.  I have owned three versions of this lens over the years... Pentax mount, Canon EF mount, and the 10mm version for the Canon EF-S mount.  I really loved using these for night skies.  But... I found something better, and sold the Rokinon lenses.

I now use the Venus Optics Laowa RF 15mm F/2 Zero-D lens.  It is a manual lens like the Rokinon.  All lenses this wide will have distortion.  With the Venus Optics Laowa, the distortion is not only a little less before editing... but it is also a LOT easier to correct in editing.  The Rokinon always had a bit of a mustache effect along the horizon after lens correction.  With the Laowa, it's completely gone.  Vignetting is easier to correct with this lens as well.  

The build quality is also much nicer.  This is a very well machined lens.  The moving parts just feel nicer (snug? - but not tight or stiff). It feels more of a precision build than the Rokinon.  There is also a switch on the aperture ring where each stop will click into place, or smoothly move from one to the next (which is good if you ever do video).  The Rokinon has a large bulging front glass element to the point of even with the hood, you have to be careful not to bump it.  The Laowa has a front element that does not bulge at all (which helps with less distortion), but not only that, you can use lens filters on this lens.  With the Rokinon it's impossible.  While I don't use filters at all for night photography, I do for daytime use when I shoot infrared... or if I want to use a ND filter for long exposure photography.  The colors with this lens seem a little nicer as well.  More natural, where the Rokinon had a bit less vibrance.  

After using the Laowa for a year and a half (after over 10 years of using the Rokinon lenses) I will never recommend the Rokinon lenses again IF you can afford the little bit more for the Laowa.  This one is really that much nicer.