{"id":2571,"date":"2013-01-30T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T06:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2013-01-31T08:28:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T08:28:51","slug":"five-myths-about-image-stabilisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=2571","title":{"rendered":"Five myths about Image Stabilisation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IS-VR-OS\"<\/a>Canon calls it image stabilisation, Nikon uses vibration reduction and Sigma has Optical Stabilizer. The name may be different but the aim is the same. IS, VR and OS all promise the chance to shoot sharper shots at slower shutter speeds.<\/p>\n

I love Image stabablised lenses but they can\u2019t work miracles, so lets\u00a0dispel\u00a0a few myths.<\/p>\n

IS lenses will stop blurred images<\/b><\/span>
\nImage stabilisation\u00a0will certainly reduce camera shake and often by a considerable amount, but let your shutter speed drop to low and your photo will still blur because of camera shake. Although image stabilisation\u00a0will lower the shutter speed at which camera shake blur will happen, it can\u2019t completely remove it.<\/p>\n

Of course IS can do nothing to stop motion blur which is when your subject moves during the exposure.<\/p>\n

My advice\u2026 I love IS lenses but beware of their limitations\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

IS must be switched off when using a tripod<\/span>
\n<\/b>Generally speaking this is a good idea. Many\u00a0IS system get a little confused by tripods which can lead to soft or blurred images, but as you can see in this video <\/a>I leave my IS turned on when using a tripod.<\/p>\n

So am I risking my photos being blurred? Well\u00a0I’ve\u00a0lost count of how many times people have pulled me up on it. The thing is many image stabablised lenses, including my Canon 24-105L, are what\u2019s known as tripod aware which means the IS switches itself off when it\u2019s not needed.<\/p>\n

Whilst it\u2019s fine to switch IS off on tripod aware lenses, you do run the risk of forgetting to switch it back on.<\/p>\n

My advice\u2026 If you\u2019re not sure if your IS lens is tripod aware then switch it off.<\/em><\/p>\n

IS can replace a tripod<\/span>
\n<\/b>No image stabilisation system can completely replace a tripod but if I\u2019m honest it can reduce the need for a tripod.<\/p>\n

Tripods allow super long exposure, slow you down (which is good for composition) and give unrivaled sharpness to a photo.<\/p>\n

My advice\u2026 You can\u2019t beat a tripod but you don\u2019t always need one.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

IS lenses are always sharper\u00a0<\/b><\/span>
\nWell no, not always. As a general rule to avoid camera shake you want your shutter speed to be equal, or better still, double the lens focal length for a sharp shot. So when I’m hand holding a 200mm lens, I like my shutter speed to be 1\/400th second or more.<\/p>\n

If it \u00a0suddenly drops to 1\/100th<\/sup> sec, an IS lens will give a sharper shot every time. However what if you\u2019re using the same 200mm \u00a0lens and your shutter speed is 1\/2000th<\/sup> second? In that case the advantage of IS lenses is the square root of nothing.<\/p>\n

My advice\u2026 Non IS lenses are just as good as IS lenses at fast shutter speeds.<\/em><\/p>\n

IS, VR, OS\u2026 they\u2019re all the same<\/span>
\n<\/b>Well nearly. Some IS systems are better at stabilising then others. You\u2019ll often see then rated as the number of stops improvement you\u2019ll get. The best IS lenses offer around 4 stops but there\u2019s more to it then that.<\/p>\n

Many lenses will have more then one mode of stabilisation. For example you may get a general IS and a panning IS settings. The panning setting will reduce vertical shake only, which can be very handy for sports photographers.<\/p>\n

My advice\u2026 More stops of IS means more money but buy the best you can afford.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canon calls it image stabilisation, Nikon uses vibration reduction and Sigma has Optical Stabilizer. The name may be different but the aim is the same. IS, VR and OS all promise the chance to shoot sharper shots at slower shutter speeds. I love Image stabablised lenses but they can\u2019t work miracles, so lets\u00a0dispel\u00a0a few myths. … Continue reading Five myths about Image Stabilisation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[23,40,38,36,24,32,39],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-featured","tag-is","tag-lens","tag-photography","tag-spotlight","tag-tripod-2","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2574,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}