[M43] How important is Image Stabilization to you?

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Hi All,

How strongly do you rate Image Stabilization?

It seems all Oly bodies have IS built in, whilst Panny offers IS in some of their zoom lens, none of their pancake/primes.

Would lack of IS be a deal breaker for you?

I'm coming from a P&S and worried about not having IS.
Will have the G3 + 14-42mm but looking possibly towards G3 + 20mm = no IS.

Opinions appreciated!
 
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I went from a crop Canon to a full frame this year and my walk around lens would not work on the full frame so I had to replace it. Problem was that I wanted a really good lens and the best I could find was the new 24-70 MarkII. (non i.s.) I bought it but I was a bit worried at first. Turns out that it doesn't make a whole lot of difference from what i have seen. Now don't get me wrong, you do need to be conscience of not having it and take a second to steady your hand but I don't really even think about it now. As far as having a whole kit made of none I.S. lens or body or what ever your dealing with, I would probably shy away from that idea but that's just me. One bit of advise, consider what your kit will end up of. You may end up with 4 or 5 lenses. Is this the body that can afford you that?
 
IS or in my case VR is nice to have, especially on longer lenses but better optics are more important. I lived very happily for many years without stabilisation and can still cope without it but there's no denying that it does make life easier in some situations.
 
I think IS is good to have and as above it grey on longer lenses
 
I've never had IS, ever. That doesn't mean I'm agin it, it's just ... optional. People seem to get so hung up on whatever the marketeers thrust at them. Why not just relax and make photographs? What about a tripod and a pinhole camera?
 
My camera has the IS in the body so all my lenses are stabilised, but in the history of photography IS is relatively new and there are plenty of good shots from years ago. It is nice to have but I've never tested out what a hand held shot would look like with the IS switched off. It is probably not that important, most of the time, with wide angle lenses.

Dave
 
I'm just looking at getting into some Astrophotography. Most if not all of that will be on a tripod. Just looking for some suitable lenses (f2.8 or less) but will not need IS as it has to be turned off anyway if your mounting on a tripod.
 
Depends what you shoot......

try using a 70-200 f2.8L (or f4L) IS in a dark church hand held (no flash) and you'll see the importance of IS
 
Not in the least important to me. But I don't use cameras that have image stabilsation either in body or available in lens; and my subjects and way of working require a tripod anyway. Not quite answering your question, but the less the camera does for me, the better I like it; I find auto exposure and auto focus get in my way.
 
Stephen is exactly right - If you shoot on a tripod (say landscapes) then absolutely no need for IS/VR.
But shooting anything in low light handheld it's a god send :D
 
StephenM said:
Not in the least important to me. But I don't use cameras that have image stabilsation either in body or available in lens; and my subjects and way of working require a tripod anyway. Not quite answering your question, but the less the camera does for me, the better I like it; I find auto exposure and auto focus get in my way.
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Yep, I agree with this approach. I like to do the work when I take a photo, fancy electronics and other gizmos just get in my way and are often prone to failure. I shoot all manual—exposure and focus—with an incident meter, although I tend to work handheld more often than not. Obviously there are many different ways to use your camera, but this works best for me.

EOS_JD said:
Stephen is exactly right - If you shoot on a tripod (say landscapes) then absolutely no need for IS/VR.
But shooting anything in low light handheld it's a god send :D
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Although I don't use IS/VR myself, I can see how it could be useful for handholding in low light, but only for stationary subjects.
 
StephenM said:
Not in the least important to me. But I don't use cameras that have image stabilsation either in body or available in lens; and my subjects and way of working require a tripod anyway. Not quite answering your question, but the less the camera does for me, the better I like it; I find auto exposure and auto focus get in my way.
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Just curious, how does auto focus get in your way?
 
shaylou said:
Just curious, how does auto focus get in your way?
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I can't speak for Stephen, but I can tell you why I prefer manual focus:

I know far more about the scene and what I'm shooting than any camera or lens ever will. Autofocus lenses can't automatically set hyperfocal distances, they don't know anything about zone focusing, they aren't as good at pre-focusing, and they don't really know anything about the subject(s) that I actually want in focus (they're just searching for contrast). I, however, do know exactly what I want from the scene, so it's often easier and quicker for me to just do it myself. I also tend to work at large apertures, usually wide open, and my success rate is far better with manual focusing.

Having had cameras and autofocus fail on me in the past, I also don't trust cameras and lenses that rely heavily on electronics.

I shoot with medium format cameras almost exclusively though, which makes manual focusing a lot easier.

I might feel differently about this if I were shooting more sports, events, etc. or if I were using digital full-frame or APS-C cameras, which usually have small viewfinders that lack manual focusing aids.
 
I don't very often use a camera with autofocus, so it might be down to lack of experience or practice on my part, but I find that for most of the subjects I photograph the camera focuses on a different part of the scene to the one I want in focus. This then requires me to either keep the shutter half pressed while I manual focus (and easing up on the finger pressure causes the camera to undo my focusing) or try to bring the focus point on to what I want sharp. Both are distractions that mean I can't give full attention to the subject.

I will also admit to having had a bad second hand experience of autofocus when my wife was unable to photograph a geyser erupting because the sudden jet of water made the camera think that it needed to focus; and the shutter was locked until it was happy, losing the image opportunity.

More simply - my subjects and working methods allow me plenty of time to consider what I want and to do it myself. Autofocus is in my world something that actively works against what I want.

On the other side, my experience with DLSRs has been mixed. I can focus an Olympus E3 easily, but some others have viewfinders where everything seems to be in permanent focus, and I have had to rely on autofocus (and have the slightly out of focus images to prove it). I presume that a careful reading of the manual would let me find out how to control it, but I'm lazy - if I can do something easily myself, I don't want to put in a lot of effort to have a machine do it for me.
 
Most of my lenses are IS enabled. The first one I got didn't seem to work very well. I got it for walk-around, and I found things were blurry. Then I got a second one, the 100-400mm L IS on a crop camera for shooting birds. Again, the results were not great.
However, I persevered, and found that I was taking the shots wrong. I was pressing the shutter button to focus and take the shot in one smoth motion. Turns out the IS takes a finite time to stabalise, and until this point it was making the image worse. Now, I have the DOF button set to turn on the IS independant of the shutter, now I can focus and look through the view-finder with the IS on, and see a nice stable image.

For birds, then I think it is very important.
For walk-around, maybe not so,
but, when taking shots of babies in dark rooms without a flash (hmm sounds dodgy), it helps too.
 
I'm still a bit confused on why using manual focus is the preferred choice. Focus points are not relevant, I always choose the spot I want for my focus point and use back button focus in case recomposing is needed. That being said, a quality lens is very capable of doing the actual focusing as opposed to me dialing it in. So if we take the fact that we are choosing the focus point, eliminating the point of the camera choosing what to focus on, we are left with the actual turning of the focus ring vs pushing a button. So once again how is manual focus better than auto focus? Personally I think it's just a matter of preference. To me manual focus is an necessity in some situation (low light landscapes) but (IMO) for most situations I find it slow and cumbersome.
 
OK, I said that I wasn't experienced with autofocus cameras - I don't use a DSLR for anything serious. I don't understand how you can choose the spot you want - I've only ever come across predefined ones meaning that you have to focus and then recompose - and I have absolutely no idea what a "back button focus" is or means. For me, it's a choice between turning the focus ring on a lens and releasing the shutter, or either half depressing the shutter and focussing manually or using autofocus and then half depressing the shutter and recomposing. I prefer to turn a ring rather than half depress a button and recompose. It just seems less steps between me and making the exposure. But that has to be my last word, as this is off topic.
 
Never had VR on any of my lenses till recent when I got the 70-200mm MK2 and still don't use it at all. I don't think for me personally it is needed at all. I shot this image at 500mm with a Nikon 300mm f/4 and TC-17EII which doesn't have any VR features and shot this completely handheld @ 1/80

10491280126_cb78bc542f_c.jpg
 
i have IS on most my lenses.. never use it.....

your question is too open ended.. you will gte people who depend on IS answering and people like me where IS would make the job worse....
 
shaylou said:
How did you shoot at 500mm with a 300mm lens?
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in the bit you quoted he lists 300 and a 1.7 teleconverter (TC) which should make his lens about 510mm
 
shaylou said:
Thanks I don't know anything about Nikon so I didn't recognize what he was saying is a teleconverter.

:canon:
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To be fair.. a TC is a TC in both canon and nikon :)
 
I've never really used IS much previously - nothing against it, but it was never really something I worried about when choosing kit.

However, having just upgraded my GH2 to an E-M5, I have to say I'm very impressed with the IBIS. My other hobby is fishkeeping, and aquarium photography requires a lot of low light work (I'm not keen on bombarding the fish with flash). These were shot handheld at 1/10s and 1/20s at 85mm equivalent, something I'd simply never manage without IS:

u01a.jpg


w60y.jpg


Admittedly a rather niche subject matter, but the IBIS in the E-M5 has been a genuine revelation for me, and I can see it being incredibly useful.
 
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shaylou said:
I saw TC-17EII and I have never seen that before. It could of been a flash gun for all I know so that really isn't all that fair if a statement imo.
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come on guys pretty sure our american cousins don't call it a tc hth mike.
 
shaylou said:
I saw TC-17EII and I have never seen that before. It could of been a flash gun for all I know so that really isn't all that fair if a statement imo.
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I have never owned a nikon ether and know nothing about them.... But I know a nikon flash gun wouldnt have extended it to 500m :)

I wouldnt worry about it to much... if at all :)
 
IS is a great option to have and you can easily switch it off if/when you don't want it.

My Canon L zoom lens has 2 stages of IS and Stage 2 is useful for panning. Every little bit helps.
 
If you have it and don't like it, it can be switched off. The contrary doesn't work. IMHO, for photography it's not that important - if you shoot within safe shutter speeds. I second those that say a tripod, when the required shutter speed is too slow for handheld, is much better.

It is fantastic for videos though. I have a number of Panasonic lenses, with and without IS, and the videos made with IS look much much better. If photography is your main interest, trade IS for a faster F number. If you plan to use the camera for video too (m43 is great for that), IS comes very handy.
 
All my canon lenses have the I.s. Turned off.

I'm not a fan of it & it's too noisy on my 600f4
 
skysh4rk said:
Autofocus lenses can't automatically set hyperfocal distances
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Although that should be really easy for a camera to do. All it needs to know is the aperture and it should be able to set the focus at hyperfocal.

I don't know of any camera which has this feature. Does it exist?


Steve.
 
drexyl said:
All my canon lenses have the I.s. Turned off.

I'm not a fan of it & it's too noisy on my 600f4
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....So are you saying that IS creates visual noise? Is this something which is amplified at longer focal lengths such as on your 600mm?
 
RedRobin said:
....So are you saying that IS creates visual noise? Is this something which is amplified at longer focal lengths such as on your 600mm?
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I presume that noisy in this instance actually refers to the sound it makes (i.e., the IS is loud).
 
A couple of times I have found the IS inadvertently switched off on my 100mm macro, when using it handheld, which was a great reminder of just how useful it is on this lens. I find the IS a help on my 100-400 too, especially this time of year, when light is in short supply. I'm not sure you gain as many stops as the manufacturers claim though, at least not on my older lenses.My 70-200 II does have great stabilisation, but that's not a lens where I need it so much- if nature is your thing it's invaluable, in my opinion.
 
I do not get IS (VR on Nikon). If I am shooting a landscape then I will invariably have a tripod, so its switched off. If it is anything else then its likely to be moving so you need a reasonable shutter speed anyway.
 
BBR said:
I do not get IS (VR on Nikon). If I am shooting a landscape then I will invariably have a tripod, so its switched off. If it is anything else then its likely to be moving so you need a reasonable shutter speed anyway.
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If im handholding and say need a shutter speed of 1/500th vr on new nikon lenses claim to give the same results at 4stops slower speeds
 
barratt1988 said:
If im handholding and say need a shutter speed of 1/500th vr on new nikon lenses claim to give the same results at 4stops slower speeds
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Yes I understand you can shoot at 1/60 or 1/30 without camera shake but if the subject of the photo is moving you will, or could, still get motion blur of the subject. The subject of the photo does not slow down because you are using VR.
 
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