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 provide 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 landscape tack-sharp knows exactly what I'm talking about.
At 12mm, we see ...
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| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
Zoomed in to 32mm, we see...
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| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
The Panasonic 12-32mm lens's MEGA O.I.S. stabilizer system does really well at both wide and tele focal lengths to improve the amount of usable shots at slower shutter speeds. At 12mm, we saw about 2-3 stops of improvement, while at 32mm we saw a more noticeable effect from image stabilization, with closer to 3-4 stops of improvement.
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.
