Ad Astra Observatory

I have been struggling with MaxIM DL for over 2 years now, trying to get things working right.

Among the problems, MaxIM really likes to do everything in RAW out of DSLRs, but RAW images are a lot larger than JPG. I have to do almost everything in JPG, then only do RAW when I’m “really shooting”. Also, RAW Color is about twice as fast as RAW Mono.

So here’s the thing. It turns out that I was using a USB1.1 camera (the 300D) all this time. And the very next revision of the Canon DSLR, the 350D, is a USB2.0 camera.

I found a modded 350D for $350 on Astromart, and jumped on it. The camera arrived Tuesday.

Except for some initial fits and starts (the new camera uses different batteries and AC adapter than the 300D), it just dropped right in where the 300D sat.

And the downloads are oh, so fast. A full-frame RAW Color image with the 300D takes 90sec to download. On the 350D, it takes more like 2sec. It’s a game-changer.

The 350D also has a couple more megapixels (8mpx vs 6mpx), which (because the physical chip size is the same) translates into a little more magnification (0.56″/px with Cassie opposed to 0.63″/px). A nice bonus, but not my primary reason for upgrading.

Long live the 350D!