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]

Didn't get a lot of pictures without clouds last night but a few of them I really like. I'm biased of course lol. However I think there better from the last ones. I'm not sure but, I think, I may have fixed or got closer to fixing the focus problem that you saw in the previous pictures.

I will send you a link when I'm done processing the different sets that I took.

[jrhoffman75]

went out last night to shoot Milky Way. Lit the foreground barn with LumeCube lights. This is just a quick edit in DPP.

[Basic]

That's awesome. Mine definitely won't look like that. Tonight is supposed to be cloudless. I think I'm going to try an ISO 800. What were your settings for that picture?

[jrhoffman75]

15mm Irix lens on a full frame body. 8 seconds, f/2.5, ISO 3200. I probably should have tried ISO 6400. I took 10 shots but haven't stacked them yet.

[Basic]

I had a lot of light at 1600 ISO so that is why I was considering 800 at 25 seconds. Or 1600 @10 seconds

[Basic]

I have a huge problem with light pollution from Indianapolis which is 50 miles away for my milky-way shots.

[Basic]

Sorry for the multiple replies. When I look at your recent picture and compare it to mine, I feel like I'm still missing something in my set up. If tonight is perfectly clear, I can at least get a better shot in order to figure out what I'm doing wrong or right but needs a little tweaking.

[jrhoffman75]

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@Basic wrote:
I have a huge problem with light pollution from Indianapolis which is 50 miles away for my milky-way shots.

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I'm fortunate that we have some good dark sky sites around where I live. Red circle is wgenerally where I was shooting.

[Basic]

I would have to drive 50 miles to the north west in order to get a dark sky like that. However, I did find a spot near me that has no lights from neighbors and is elevated about 30 feet so that I can get some horizon shots.

[Basic]

It's an old trash dump that they reclaimed and now use it for the local RC flyer club.