Canon Digital Rebel first light images...

Feb 3, 2004

I finally got my copy of Images Plus 1.72. This excellent software is completely integrated image processing package, including the ability to acquire images with digital SLRs. I was waiting for this software prior to combining the many RGB images I took on January 19th, “first light” with the new Canon Digital Rebel (300D). I’ll discuss the software in detail at another time, but for now you should know that there is a LOT to like about it, especially the DVD tutorials that come with it. In the meantime, go to www.mlunsold.com for more information and purchasing information.

I learned a couple of things while processing the M42 and M45 images (link to them from ). First, I didn’t have the camera set for RAW mode when I took the shots.  Instead, it was set to Large JPG.  The resolution is full, but the amount of information is substantially decreased, from ~7mb to ~2.9mb.  Second, I learned that dark frame reduction works much better if you take a master set of darks instead of a single dark, a method I am accustomed to using with the ST7e.  The result was that noise was much stronger than I wanted.  So, I went ahead and left the M42 image uncalibrated (I didn’t subtract any dark frames). The M45 image contains was indeed calibrated, but I had to use Photoshop CS to remove some of the noise manually.

After using Images Plus for my stacking and combining, I used Photoshop for the rest of the images. I used the excellent SGBNR noise reduction software for final touch-up on the M45 shot.

Despite the aforementioned issues, I’m pretty pleased with the images.  I wish I had taken many more images to add to the stack on both images, but I’ll take it!  I think these “first light” shots go a long way to show that the Canon Digital Rebel is a killer camera for the price.