Powershot SX50 and Astrophotgraphy?

[Kohaku]

I'm fairly new to this camera as well as the world of photography. I'm coming from taking just basic pictures with a cellphone to a Canon PowerShot SX50. I know how to adjust settings like your ISO, but other than that is where I get a bit confused. I'm interested in Astrophotography, Landscapes and Still Life ( like food and such for example ) for the most part. I take lots of pictures of my dogs for practice. Any helpful tips on settings and such I should be using are highly recommended. I have a Tripod as well!

[John_]

Great choice in cameras! I own 2 of the SX50HS. What I like is the flexibilty it offers in photograpy and the great images it produces. I am not a professional photographer but I found someone who is and who did a free 10 part tutorial on so many different aspects of shooting and guess what? He used the SX50 in all of his lessons! It is a great way to learn many many things for free and you can also message him with specific questions and he knows the SX50 inside and out. The lessons are easy to understand and well prepared. Here is the link to them https://www.youtube.com/user/MWESTPhotography

It is a great place to start 

I had an after thought you might want to look into a remote shutter switch, either wired or wireless I have both and they aren't very expensive. They come in handy for long exposures like of the night sky, planets, the moon etc. Also for wildlife such as birds.The SX50 have a remote shutter input which accepts a 2.5mm male plug so any remote shutter that has a 2.5mm male plug will work and there are many! I have the wired one made by Canon with some extension cables and also a wireless one made by Poloroid inexpensive and works great!

[TCampbell]

The SX50 isn’t really suitable for astrophotography.  You really want a camera with a “bulb” mode.  

“Bulb” mode allows you to hold the shutter open for any arbitrary amount of time.  Nearly every DSLR camera has the feature (all Canon “EOS” models) but I don’t think the SX50 has it.

There are a few variations on astrophotography but it sounds like you’re thinking of night-time landscape shots (not using the camera through a telescope or even on a star tracker head).  For those types of astrophotography, you generally want a short focal length lens (very wide angle) and also something with very low focal ratio.

Most any Canon Rebel body would be suitable... if paired with the right lens.

If you use longer focal length lenses, you need a tracker head ... that’s a head that is attached to a photo tripod (preferably a sturdy photo tripod) and it’s aligned so it’s axis of rotation is parallel to Earth’s axis of rotation (basically if you live in the Northern hemisphere, you align the axis to the North Celestial Pole).  As the Earth spins in one direction, the motor on the head spins in the opposite direction ... but at the same rate of ration.  That allows the tracker head to hold the camera on target at an area of the sky for as long as needed.