Canon EOS 60Da
Fancy a spot of astrophotography? The Canon 60Da is an SLR specifically designed for shooting the wonders of the night sky.
Price: TBA
Video
In brief
It's been a while since the EOS 20Da, which was a digital SLR specifically designed for the needs of astrophotographers. The 60Da offers the same body, 18-megapixel CMOS sensor, Digic 4 image processor and 3-inch articulating screen as the regular EOS 60D. The big difference is that it has a low-pass infrared (IR) cut filter, which allows photographers to better capture hydrogen-alpha light of 656mn.
Plenty of astrophotographers tend to modify their cameras in order to better capture this light by replacing the standard IR filter, which usually filters out the particularly reddish hue from H-alpha objects. The 60Da also has a maximum ISO rating of 6400, which is expandable up to 12,800, and Canon has thoughtfully included a remote controller adapter (RA-E3).
A comparison between what the 60Da (left) and the 60D (right) captures of the Rosette Nebula.
(Credit: Canon)
The 60Da will be available as body only from 19 April 2012, though no local RRP has been announced.
Latest comments (Add your comment)
Is it a glass or quartz filter?
Is it a Canon filter or a re-badged Hutech, Baader or Astronomics?
Does the camera allow any new binning modes to match your seeing conditions?
How well is dark current managed and amp glow reduced on 10, 20 and 30 minute light frame subs?
Has each pixels' full well count and the Quantum Efficiency of the imaging chip been modified in any way?
Why did they opt for 14 bit D/A converters rather than 16 bit as most astro based photographers require for high dynamic range shots?
Lexy, where is this new filter?
Is it a software filter built into the image processor? or a physical one in front of the sensor?
Just curious if it was a soft one, why it can't be a custom function that you could turn on?
Probably a physical filter, in-camera so you can use any lens.
Then once the camera has been modified to remove the filter, you can put a filter on the lens element to be able to take "normal" photos.