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 30mm, the "one over focal length" rule of thumb suggests we'll get sharp images, without image stabilization activated, at the 1/30 second shutter speed, and this holds true here. Activating OIS image stabilization, we see consistently sharp images at 1/8 of a second, and even 50% sharp at 1/4 of a second, giving us around 2 1/2 stops of hand-holding 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.
