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 24mm, we see what we would expect with image stabilization deactivated - 100% sharp shots at 1/30s. With VC activated, we see 100% sharp shots all the way down to 1/8s, with 90% at 1/4s, meaning somewhere around three stops of hand-holding improvement.
 |
| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
Zoomed in to 70mm, with VC activated we see 100% sharp shots hand-held all the way to 1/15s, with 90% sharp at 1/8s, meaning also somewhere around three stops of image stabilization.
 |
| 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.
