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Advice on an imaging setup for the Solar Eclipse 2017

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#51 Kendahl

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Posted 09 March 2017 - 12:59 AM

I purchased a faster SD card for the camera and find it has a big impact on the number of exposures I can take during totality is it shortens the time to save the burst mode images. Also, I find that the time to save is shortest when the SD card is empty. As the card fills, the number of images I can save during a given time decreases so I need to be sure to clear the memory as part of the setup.

What card speeds do you mean? Right now, I have a 16 GB card rated at 60 MB/s. Do you think I would see a significant improvement by investing in a 90 MB/s card? Is it faster to put 15 GB on a 64 GB card than on a 16 GB card?



#52 Glenn Graham

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Posted 09 March 2017 - 12:14 PM

My new card is a SanDisk Extreme 32GB Class 10 U3 microSDHC (got it at Costco). The specs stated speeds are read: up to 90MB/s and write: up to 40MB/s. Of course its the write speed that is most important. I don't have the older card in front of me so I will have to get back to you on that. The old card is full sized and at least a decade old. With the old card I was getting 60 frames across the exposure set in 1m50s. With the new card it is 96 frames in 1m30s when starting empty. After running the script a few times, I noticed that the time to record the 96 frames and 45s of video increased around 5s each time (I need to run more trials to see what the longer trend is. I assume it tapers off). Clearing the memory again produced 96 frames in 1m30s.

 

The big win with the faster card was being able to increase the burst image count (from 6 to 8 for each exposure setting). I was also able to increase the number of exposure sets to get additional coverage for the inner corona.

 

Oh, when you state your card speeds are they write speeds?

Not sure about comparisons between the 64GB and 16GB card, when writing near the capacity of one but not the other. Interesting to look into.

 

Cheers!

-Glenn


Edited by Glenn Graham, 09 March 2017 - 12:19 PM.


#53 Glenn Graham

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Posted 10 March 2017 - 01:38 PM

Ok, I checked the old card. It was a SanDisk Ultra PLUS 16GB Class 10 U1 SDHC. It claims 40MB/s but wasn't specific on the write speed. I found a review that measured 46.6MB/s read and 11.8MB/s write. Found another review that found write speed of 20MB/s. Not surprising that the faster card was a noticeable improvement with an advertised write speed of 40MB/s. Again, find the write speed of your cards and compare with what is available.

 

Cheers!

-Glenn


Edited by Glenn Graham, 10 March 2017 - 01:48 PM.


#54 Kendahl

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Posted 14 March 2017 - 02:36 PM

My SDHC memory card is SanDisk SDSDXN-016G-G46. It is Class 10 / UHS-I / U3 with a maximum write speed of 40 MB/s. With Eclipse Orchestrator, I have been able to reliably record 104 shots in 150 seconds. During continuous shooting (shutter release button held down), I get an initial burst of about six quick shots before the camera slows down to the same speed.

 

There are now SDHC and SDXC UHS-I cards with write speeds up to 90 MB/s and UHS-II cards that are even faster. I need to ask tech support at B&H Photo how much my T3i can benefit from them.



#55 Glenn Graham

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Posted 14 March 2017 - 09:08 PM

Thanks for the info on the card and Eclipse Orchestrator. I'll look into the faster cards and see if there is any benefit with my D5100 as well. Might be well worth the additional expense.

 

Cheers!

-Glenn



#56 Kendahl

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 12:08 AM

B&H tech support concurs that my T3i will benefit from a faster card. Despite the old one's 40 MB/s maximum write speed, they think it was averaging only 10 MB/s. Their recommendation, which I ordered, is this one: https://www.bhphotov..._sdhc_64gb.html. (The 64 GB capacity was my choice.) After I have had a chance to play with it, I will report how much it improves performance.



#57 Glenn Graham

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 11:30 AM

Thanks for the update Kendahl, very helpful. Looking forward to reading your results.



#58 Kendahl

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 03:46 PM

The new SDXC card arrived. With the old card, I got a one shot every 1.5 seconds during extended continuous shooting. The new one reduced that time to 1.2 seconds. Every bit helps but the difference is far less than I had hoped and expected. I haven't tried to push the old limits with Eclipse Orchestrator since I don't expect to gain much. I will use the faster speed for a safety margin to avoid losing shots during totality.



#59 Glenn Graham

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 05:30 PM

Thanks for the update. As you say, every bit helps. I plan to get a faster card soon and will let you know if it makes any difference using gphoto on the raspberryPi controller.



#60 jcrb

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Posted 27 March 2017 - 09:38 AM

The new SDXC card arrived. With the old card, I got a one shot every 1.5 seconds during extended continuous shooting. The new one reduced that time to 1.2 seconds. Every bit helps but the difference is far less than I had hoped and expected. I haven't tried to push the old limits with Eclipse Orchestrator since I don't expect to gain much. I will use the faster speed for a safety margin to avoid losing shots during totality.

Kendahl, I use the the SanDisk Pro cards in my D750 and they will definitely do faster sustained writes than you are getting however I've read that the T3i tops out around 45MB/s for writing so you may be limited by the camera not the card. That said you should still be getting more than one frame every 1.2 seconds, are you capturing RAW or RAW+JPEG? If the latter that is taking extra bandwidth. So make sure you are just capturing RAW, or if you are taking JPEG then try compressed JPEG (the option with the chunky curve next to the L). And make sure the refresh time set in EO is less than 1 second



#61 IOmaynez

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Posted 26 August 2017 - 11:39 AM

Hello,  I really liked the performance of the ASI 1600 mm cool during the solar eclipse,  these photos where taken with white light filter,  I really like the H Alpha ones but that is indeed expensive..  here's the gear I used:

- Explore scientific ED 127mm triplet 

- ZWO 1600 mm cool with mini EFW

- Explore Scientific EXOS 2 goto

 

https://drive.google...ew?usp=drivesdk

 




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