Most people tend to think of image stabilization as being mainly for telephoto lenses. While it's true that their longer focal lengths tend to magnify the effects of camera shake, image stabilization can provde a very useful assist at wider angle focal lengths as well; anyone who's ever tried to blur the image of a waterfall, while keeping the surrounding landsape tack-sharp knows exactly what I'm talking about.
At 50mm, the lens is already pretty great to shoot with hand-held, as we're getting 100% sharp images at 1/30s with OIS disengaged. Turning on OIS, we get 100% sharp images down to 1/8s and 50% sharp at 1/4s, resulting in an improvement of 2 1/2 stops.
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| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
Zoomed in to 140mm, we see what we'd expect with OIS disengaged: 100% sharp images at 1/125 and falling off from there. With OIS engaged, we get 100% sharp images all the way down to 1/15s (90% sharp at 1/8s) and 50% sharp at 1/4s, suggesting results in the 3 1/2 to 4 stops of improvement.
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| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
IS systems tend to provide more benefit to less-stable shooters than very steady ones, so most users will see the same or greater amounts of shake reduction as we measured here. You can read more about our IS test methodology here: SLRgear IS Test Methodology, v2.
