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.
The Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro OSS provides a very stable shooting platform; we were getting 100% sharp images with OSS turned off, at the 1/60s shutter speed (this defies the one-over-focal-length rule of thumb by around a half-stop). With OSS turned on, we were able to get 100% sharp images hand-held at 1/30s and 90% at 1/15s, and 50% sharp at 1/8s, giving around a two-and-a-half stop 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.
