What Canon lenses should you get for astrophotography?

[@digsfossils]

Thanks for all this info, and confirmation about using a f/4 for Astro and Milky Way photos. I've had my eye on a Canon 10-20mm F/4 for Astro and Milky Way photos (and landscapes). But I still have a little more research to do.

[@Sockeye404]

I use my old Sigma EF 14mm f1.8 with adapter on my R5. I am still waiting for a 14mm f1.4 for RF 🙂

[@kalef1234]

Great lens I have for my 6Ds and got an EOS R recently. WHEN is Canon going to let Sigma release the new mirrorless lenses on RF??

[@digsfossils]

I'm still waiting for a Sigma 14mm f1.4 for RF too. A long time. ;)

[@Suprastar87]

I enjoy Moon photography and use a Sigma 150-600mm at 600mm with either a 1.4x or a 2x teleconverter.

[@Hellseeker1]

I did the same with my Nikon D7200 and I gotten a ton of compliments on that photo.

[@Hellseeker1]

10-20mm looks pretty slick, I was already planning on the 24-70mm anyways.

[@francestabor6792]

Thank you, this was very informative. I’m excited to see more content.

[@BrentHall]

You're welcome, I'm glad it helped!

[@stacyegan5719]

Very informative video, thank you! My biggest take-away at the moment is that it encourages me to try the f/4 lenses I already have (EF 17-40 & RF 24-105) with my Canon R8, at least to dip into trying wider field astro. I've been put off by the common recommendations of f/2.8 or faster, which I don't have in lenses wider than 50mm. The longer lenses I have might be kinda fun too, if I delve into stacking and tracking.

[@BrentHall]

Yeah, definitely don't let f/4 stop you! Great images can still be had, and I use f4 for astro all the time. Staking and tracking, and most importantly, editing will help your images immensely.

[@andreas_rr]

Since you mentioned the Laowa 90mm F/2.8, i'd also add the RF 85mm F/2 as an affordable medium focal length. There's more than enough room to stop down, and i've done some great northern lights images with it. Plus it also doubles down for portraits and low-key macro. Overall a great lens considering the price. Just keep in mind that the AF basically is unuseable for video, so that's one field to avoid the lens. Asides from that, the 16mm is perfect considering the price. Put it on the R8 and you've probably got the cheapest still very powerfull combo for astrophotography.

[@BrentHall]

Oh man, I can't believe I forgot that lens! I owned it for a couple of years and loved it for astro, stopped down a bit of course, but man it was a cool little lens, especially for the price. I think I have at least a couple of videos in my astro playlist where I use it for astro.

[@andreas_rr]

@@BrentHall absolutely, the price of the 85 F/2 is a bargain. I got mine for 410€ new, including VAT and everything (roughly 445$). So far i've been very happy for the lens, and additionally to the price, the weigth and size is also very practical, considering the versatility it has (macro, portrait and very fast for a non-L lineup)

[@BrentHall]

@@andreas_rr For sure! I used it for landscape an portraits a lot too. I miss having it. Might pick it up again someday.

[@bamhamer]

the best rf lens for astro is an ef lens. sigma 14mm 1.8 which is pretty sad to see from a manufacturer like canon that they still dont have better options for astro

[@nordic5490]

Do you shoot the milkyway under dark skies ? If so, you will need 10mm or up to 12mm if the MW is diagonal across the frame, to fit it in. I recommend the RF 10-20mm - coma is not visible @ f4. F4 is enough light for 25 or 20 seconds, and @ 10mm, star trails are not visible @ 25secs. Eg, My R5 + RF10mm @ f4 or f4.5 @ 25 or 30secs @ iso 5000 looks wondernfull. My RF15-35mm f2.8 can only be used in certain angles for the mw, as it is not wide enough. No, you do not need f1.8 @ 10mm due to longer exposures. My rf85mm f1.2 stopped down to f1.6 is also a superb astro lens.

[@bamhamer]

@@nordic5490 where can I see your milky way shots with the rf 10-20mm? At 10mm you should be able to even expose for as long as 50 seconds without visible star trails no? Can't you just make a panorama if you can't fit the milkyway in a single frame?

[@spidersj12]

I have the Sigma 24mm F1.4 EF mount, and I use the control ring adapter for my EOS R and R5. Shooting the northern lights even out my back bedroom window to get near pinpoint stars with no streaking due to the earth's rotation, I shot it at F1.4 ISO 100 and 8 seconds. It's an awesome lens and inexpensive, it's not got image stabilization, but for astrophotography, who cares. The 400 or 500 rule helps figure out how long your exposure should be at your given focal length. For side landscape shots at sunset, shooting the Sigma 24mm at F1.4 and ISO 100 is also great because you can do bracketed shots with fast shutter speeds if let's say there is a lot of wind and you don't want that messing up your merged image of you use storage that auto merges your bracketed shots.

[@MartinFransson]

I heard that lens has some pretty bad coma, is it really that bad?

[@randellt]

Great info as always! I had very good sucess with my Canon EF 70x200 1: 2.8 I think it's my favorite glass of all time.

[@robhamilton8993]

Great information. We are planning to do some wildlife & landscape & astrophotography this summer in Grand Canyon,Tetons & Yellowstone. Have a canon r6 mark2 with 24-105 mm lens. Would that one be good for astrophotography? Also taking a t8i with nifty 50 & 18-400 mm f3.5. Sound good for trip ?

[@bamhamer]

no. the 24-105 has an aperture of 4. for astro you should go for 2.8 or lower

[@BrentHall]

The 24-105 will definitely get you some decent astro images. I used the ef version for a very long time, and shoot at f4 with many lenses, including my faster lenses. Don't ever not try something just because there's something out there that you don't have that could be better. Make the most of what you have. Learning how to stack and better edit astro images will also greatly increase your image quality potential, even with a slower lens. Like I said in the video, I shoot a ton of stuff at f4 and I dare anyone to tell me my images aren't good enough. I'm not saying they're the best, far from it, but IMHO they're quite good. Certainly good enough for youtube, social media, my website, prints, and all of my professional clients. Not one of my clients has EVER complained that my image wasn't good enough or should have been captured with a faster lens.

[@MusikPiratCH]

I have a few questions: Is the rather popular RF 24-105mm f4L lens any good for astrophotography? What about the rather new RF 10-20mm f2.8L lens? When we take into consideration also Canon APS-C lenses do we have to wait for those Sigma lenses like the 10-18mm f2.8 or the 16mm f1.4? Nico Carver has shown that the TTartisan 11mm f2.8 fisheye manual lens is great for the Milky Way. Do you know whether the 7artisans 10mm f2.8 fisheye (also manual) comes close or is even better?

[@eerofi]

Thanks Brent! Do you have a video about making timelapses of auroras?

[@BrentHall]

I have a video of the recent aurora that I barely managed to see and capture, and I did timelapses in it, and I think I talked about my settings, but I didn't show the full timelapse editing process, only the stills editing. I do have a few other timelapse videos though, that go over how I shoot and edit them.

[@kenetic7517]

I just picked up the Irix 15mm 2.4. I'm really curious to see how it stacks up to the normal lenses everyone uses.

[@tomsullivan2907]

Brent, great information. I have R5 body, lens wise I have EF 8-15mm F4, EF 24mm f1.4 Mk2, RF 24-105 f4, RF 15-35 f2.8, RF 24-70 f2.8, RF 100 f2.8 Macro and RF 70-200 f2.8. Thoughts about the best lens of the bunch based on your past usage? I have the adapter for EF to RF, not sure if that affects the photo. So I got that 2.8 I should stop down to maybe f4 to remove Coma. Use the screen and manually adjust the focus. Are you stacking one photo after another say popping off 15-20 frames, then stack? I see you can use the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer which appears to be for tracking for longer exposures? Asro is something I want to do, but haven't. Think about going out to the Everglades in S FL would be the closest to try and reduce some of the light issues, until my next vacation. Just want to start now and be ready for vacation in the fall. Thanks for the video and regarding the aurora, I didn't get any photos, but a friend took some so we could see it about 26.7 N here in S FL (crazy).

[@BrentHall]

If you already have the 15-35 and 24-70, then out of those options, those 2 are the ones I'd personally use the most for astro. The RF 100 and 70-200 are also great for longer stuff, especially with a tracker.

[@craigpiferphotography]

I'm still wanting to try astro one of these days, but have never had a lens that I feel is truly adequate for it. The widest I have is an old Tamron 19-35, but I noticed in my aurora shots that it does have a bit of coma, even stopped down to f/4.

[@christianwetzel1862]

Thanks for your helpful suggestions! I was lucky to have bought the Samyang/Rokinon 14mm RF lens with autofocus, it's fantastic and I was able to catch some nice aurora pictures with it lately. Unfortunately it wasn't on the market for long due to their licensing litigations with Canon. They still offer the MF version for RF though, really affordable, and if one is using it mainly for astro anyway, manual focus should not be a an issue.

[@BrentHall]

Yeah, I had that lens for a while and it was great for astro!

[@seb2549]

Great topic, was wondering about that, I kept the RF 24mm f1.8 just because of f1.8 giving me that room of shooting at f2.8 exactly to reduce the coma :). Denoising takes care of the rest at high ISO but I wish we had a wider better one and I had the RF 16mm but it was worse IMO than the 24mm.

[@tintin69rr]

Great video I was looking to add either a sigma 20 mm f1.4 or the canon ef 24mm f1.4L mk2 to my kit to shoot on the eos R as a 2nd set up for a cruise to Norway in January for the aurora and different landscapes I already have the ef 16-35f2.8L mk2 which is my goto landscape and Astro on the r6ii now like you say for the aurora you like to shoot as wide as possible I was looking solely at a fast 1.4 lens as most nights apart from a stay over in Alta right at the top of Norway the rest of the nights will be on the ship so I was thinking go for a prime f1.4 with the ship moving to allow the faster shutter speeds but now I’m thinking shall I just stick with the 16-35 and maybe just get the rf 24f1,8 to stick on the R for the 2nd set up decisions decisions lol 😂

[@yoannapetkova1757]

Can i use Canon g7x mark iii

[@7inrain]

For my Sony A7R3 I have both the Sigma 16-28mm F2.8 and the Sigma 50mm F1.4. I like the latter a bit more because it is such a fast lens and you don't even have a hint of coma at F1.4. I guess that at one point I'm going to buy the Sigma 14mm F1.4. But that has to wait as I feel I already have too many lenses. 🙃

[@seanmarlow9514]

The Sigma 40 1.4 is astounding, if you can live with vignetting.

[@IntoTheMystery13]

I LOVE my ef 16-35 f4

[@BrentHall]

Same!

[@turkeydog1980]

based on the images you took with the 16mm f/2.8 would be it be fine on a crop sensor camera wide open? i have the 35m f/1.8 and it's mostly fine in the corners wide open but it gets to be a pain doing 16x stacking + panorama to get suffient FOV

[@BrentHall]

Yeah, on a crop body, it will crop out most of the coma from it being wide open, but it still might help a bit to stop down if you really want it all gone.

[@evemitchellanderson]

For astro you should stick with ef lenses sigma 14mm 1.8 , 20mm or 24 1.4 , or the magic Canon 35mm II 1.4 Sigma 35 1.4 or Tamron 35 1.4

[@BrentHall]

Yeah, those sigma lenses are pretty good for astro. I totally forgot that I also owned the tamron 35 and 45 for quite a few years, and I used them both a lot for astro as well.

[@jimbruton9482]

Very informative video Brent. I've dabbled a little bit with astrophotography. I don't have a tracker (yet) but was curious at F4 or F5.6, can you get a decent exposure without using a tracker? Also, have your tried the RF 100-500 (my favorite) with the tracker and R5?

[@BrentHall]

If you have wider lenses, like 35mm or wider, then yeah you can certainly get decent exposures at f4. I do it all the time. You can increase the IQ further by taking multiple images and stacking them in post. No tracker needed to start. I have a few videos in my astro playlist where I do stacking with no tracking, I think even one at 100-200mm.

[@colintraveller]

What is rarely to never done pic editing software comparisons ... Whilst the vast majority use Light room , I use Affinity2 .. I've yet to see anyone do such a comparison in terms of usability , costs

[@dw.in.michigan]

I have an Irix Firefly 15mm F2.4. It's not perfect, but it's very good, and the rectilinear distortion is very well controlled. I like it much better than the Samyang/Rokinon 14mm F2.8 manual. The manual 14mm seems more prone to good copy/bad copy coin toss - had a great one for Canon, but when I switched to Nikon, it was terrible, and many reviews mentioned the variability on quality as well. However, I've seen reviews on the newer ones that have AF, and they are very favorable. Otherwise, I've had very good luck with my Samyang primes, and I've found that I prefer the cine versions, except that they aren't chipped. Luckily, Nikon has the non-CPU lens feature that allows you to enter the basic exif data.

[@Two_Com]

What is about the normal non L version of the rf 14-35? Is it any good for astro?

[@Psychonaut999]

Great informative video, thank you! Out of the two wider zooms (14-35 f4 and 15-35 f2.8), which ome would you chose for an alrounder lens including astro? I thought 2.8 might be better, but the coma seems pretty bad, and in some tests the 14-35 is even slightly sharper.

[@BrentHall]

Well I did have that choice, and I chose the 14-35. Mostly for cost and weight though. The 15-35 is a nice lens, but just not what I personally needed. I'm totally fine with doing astro at f4, because even with the faster lenses I usually stop down to reduce the coma anyways, and wide open at f4, this lens performs very well for my personal standards.

[@Psychonaut999]

@@BrentHall thank you, much appreciated!

[@robertcolby7588]

Have you had the chance to try the Tamron 30mm 1.4 ??

[@BrentHall]

No I haven't, but that reminds me...I did own the tamron 35 and 45 for quite a long time and I used them both for astro a lot. They were pretty decent when stopped down a bit.

[@noreaction1]

I have a canon r5c, and a canon r6 ii, I’m thinking of getting a celestron edge hd 11 but I don’t know how I could make it work. Any tips? Has anyone done this before?

[@BrentHall]

Yeah you'll just need a T-adapter and a canon T ring. I'm not sure if they have an RF mount one, but if not, just get the EF mount one and use the canon RF-EF lens adapter, that's what I did when I had a similar setup. I think I have a couple of older videos where I was using a smaller celestron nexstar 5se with my mirrorless cameras. You can find them in my astrophotography playlist. howl.me/cmnLotZgEIl (t adapter) howl.me/cmnLoKJ22OX (canon t ring for EF mount)

[@Findoesphotography]

Great video thank you for all the info. Im currently waiting on my Simga 18-35 1.8 It is EFs but I only have a crop sensor, however very sharp I cannot wait. 😁😁

[@Findoesphotography]

Also is that the Canon 1DC in the background?

[@BrentHall]

Yes it is 😁

[@BoReynolds]

Tonight I'm gonna TRY my sigma 16mm on my M50-2 AND my 24-105 f4 on my R50. Poor people still have options...Ha! Great info Brent.

[@techguyml]

Canon sadly has terrible options for Astro when it comes to their native lenses. They for whatever reason continue to ignore the high end fast wide angle sector of the market. Give us an L lens in 14 or 20mm! Their cheap wide angle primes have terrible coma issues, and coatings not ideal for Astro.

[@ronrotunno2901]

Excellent content as usual Brent, thank you. My go to lens for astrophotography is the RF 85mm F/1.2. In my opinion it’s the best lens that Canon has ever produced for astrophotography. .Even wide open sharpness and contrast are at a different level. Yes, the focal length takes some getting used to and yes it’s expensive (and comically large) but for me those tradeoffs are worth it.

[@douglasstemke2444]

I got a very affordable Canon 16mm f2.8 RF lens. Seems to be okay

[@BrentHall]

Yeah, I had one for a while too. I did usually stop it down to f4 as well, and it gave me some decent images.

[@julese7790]

RF 14-35 f4 is excellent for astro on a tracking mount/startracker ! RF16 f2.8 do great but on my Ra it precludes the use of a clip-in filter so it's bad... (kind of) EF35 F1.4 L mk 2 is a gem for astro ! Great video TY !

[@beldin1301]

sorry but i was falling asleep ,no insult intended , i think it would been better if you had listed the lenses as bullet points pros and cons

[@BrentHall]

Don't be sorry. You won't hurt my feelings. I've had far worse comments on here. Can't please everyone, you know. Hope you find some videos better suited to your tastes.

[@mikeyphoto48]

Boy you’ve bought and sold then rebought some lenses! 😊

[@tomsun3159]

Why should you use Canon lenses or canon gear should be the first question, in terms of lenses no matter what brand of body you use usually a look at the 3rd party lense is very usefull name the Samyang/Rokinon/Wallimex or Sigma or the Iris lenses. In terms of bodies nearly every brand can be used but i would prefer Pentax due to the astrotrace capability (built in or as an attachment) which functions as a small startracker up to 5 minute exposure time depending on the focal length and is setup within a minute. But in terms of your Video title its on one hand use your kit lens or depending on your genre milky way (Samyang/Rokinon/Wallimex 14mm or Iris 15mm or Sigma 20mm or deep sky Samyang 135mm) there might be similar capable canon lenses but at least at double or tripple the price.