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.
With the Vibration Control system, we "should" see stable results at around the 1/30 shutter speed, if we listen to the "one over focal length" rule of thumb, and indeed this is the case. With VC turned on, we can get sharp, hand-held results all the way down to the 1/4s shutter speed (well, 90% sharp), representing an improvement of 3 stops.
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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.
