Dropped $400 on a tracker mount for my stock lens, worth it or waste?

A few weeks ago I bought a star tracker mount for my camera, roughly $400, thinking it would level up my wide field shots without buying a new lens. First night out, the polar alignment took me an hour and I nearly gave up, but after I got it dialed in the 60 second exposures were way sharper than anything I got stacking short shots. My buddy says I should've just stuck with stacking untracked frames and saved the cash, but the convenience of single long exposures is hard to argue with. For anyone shooting with a kit lens, did the tracker actually change your process or did you end up ditching it for a faster lens instead?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby_palmer4d agoOG Member

Read a few threads saying the tracker mostly helps if you hate stacking, and honestly the hour of fiddling becomes muscle memory after a few nights. If your kit lens is sharp enough, the mount gives you way more room to grow than a cheaper fast lens would.

the_michael3d ago

Gotta push back on that just a little. The tracker isnt just for people who hate stacking. I used to think the same thing until I tried going 60 seconds at 85mm with my kit lens and the stars turned into little tadpoles. Stacking fixes noise but it wont fix star trails unless you take a bunch of short subs and then you are stuck with way less detail per frame. The mount lets you take longer clean shots which honestly made me a better photographer because I had to learn polar alignment and framing instead of just firing off 200 frames. Plus a $200 tracker beats dropping $600 on a faster lens that your current camera might not even resolve well. Your point about the kit lens being sharp enough is spot on though, that glass does way more than people give it credit for.