Received a t3i

[Basic]

My daughter in law gave me a t3i camera that belonged to her grandpa. He only took 5 pictures total before putting it away. I have been taking pictures with it and so far seems to be working good. I put a better SD card in it and got some extra batteries for it. I also bought a Canon 50mm macro lens and rokinon 14mm wide angle lens. My main two interests are taking pictures of the homemade soap and cosmetics that we sell and shooting the stars. 

Would anyone recommend that I take it to a camera shop to have someone look it over and make sure everything is correct? I also thought about cleaning the sensor lens. I would love to hear someone else's thoughts. 

[Basic]

I used those settings and it worked like it was supposed to. However I still keep getting double images when I download them to my laptop. The double image does not show up on the camera. Anyway, I am stacking the images right now and I will post one if I can when I'm done. 

[jrhoffman75]

Do you perhaps have the camera set to save RAW+JPEG?

Or, is the second image a blank image - if so, do you have Long Exposure Noise Reduction turned on?

[Basic]

I do have it set on RAW +jpg! 😭 I feel like an idiot. Using the stacking software should I RAW or can I use jpg and get the same results? 

[jrhoffman75 · Accepted solution]

I would use RAW.

[Basic]

Here is the best picture that I am getting, with the software. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Do I need longer exposure times or a darker night maybe?

[jrhoffman75]

You want a histogram that looks something like this:

Peaking around the 20% mark.

This was one of my 4 minute exposure tests 240 seconds at ISO 400.

Reduce shutter speed to 60 seconds and increase ISO to 1600 for similar exposure.

It is better to be a little bright and reduce exposure to darken rather than boosting exposure - less noise.

You want about an hour of total images.

Shooting at ISO 400 gives lower noise, but car headlights or maybe a stray satellite would require deleting one or two shots; that's a big percentage if you only have 15 or 20.

Losing 2 out of 60 hardly noticeable.

[Basic]

First thanks for helping me. I'm slowly getting it.

The area in which I'm going to point my lens, will not receive any stray light or next to impossible that it would. If you don't mind, give me the settings that you would use. Here is what I am thinking 60 second exposure, 3-5 seconds between shots, with a 1 hour total of shots which would be 60 shots total.

[jrhoffman75]

Glad to help.

Since you have the Rokinon I would suggest a single test shot at 60 seconds, f/2.8 and ISO 1600. If the histogram isn’t hitting the first vertical line (20% mark) boost ISO to 3200.

In the Menu yellow section reduce the LCD brightness to minimum to minimize ruining night vision when you use the LCD.

[Basic]

Thanks for the recommendations. I have already lowered the LCD brightness last night.

I will set up the histogram right now.

[Basic]

You said 20% or the first vertical line. Is that from left to right or right to left on the histogram?