Benefit turning IS off canon lens?

Robbo

Robbo

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Is there? Just wondered why the option surely it's better bein on all the time?
 
when using a tripod it needs to be turned off.
 
With the IS turned off the lens will consume less power, and will potentially be sharper at higher shutter speeds. Should prolong the life of the IS system, too.
 
It can work against you sometimes. Particularly on a tripod. The IS looks for vibrations and tries to correct them - on a tripod it tries to correct vibrations that aren't there and this can actually create vibration where there wasn't any in the first place.

Cut short - turn it off when on a tripod.

Also - I like to turn it off when I'm panning with a subject - as long as my shutter speed is sufficient for my needs the IS can again try to correct vibrations when it's not necessary. Especially when I'm trying to show motion in the picture.

HTH

Ryan
 
On some lenses there are two settings, funnily enough labelled 1 and 2. One is for 3D stabilisation and 2 is for when you are panning, then it stabilised in the vertical axis only.

All very clever :)
 
AliB said:
On some lenses there are two settings, funnily enough labelled 1 and 2. One is for 3D stabilisation and 2 is for when you are panning, then it stabilised in the vertical axis only.

All very clever :)
Click to expand...

Clever (but only if you're subject stays dead level on the horizontal axis). I think it's best to work with no IS when panning (although I'm sure others will disagree). Instead work on the good old fashioned reciprocal rule of shutter speed should be equal to or greater than the focal length of the lens. (i.e 200mm lens = 1/200 sec min shutter speed. 400mm lens = 1/400sec min shutter speed).

If shooting on a cropped sensor camera it's best to mulitply the lens by the cropped sensor factor. So Canon = 1.6 x 200mm = 320mm. Therefore min shutter speed should be 1/320 or faster.
 
Best to turn it off if you are doing panoramas on a tripod as the image can drift in the frame. This makes stitching a little more problematic. The same applies if you are blending multiple exposures
 
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