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 the 10mm focal length setting, the 10-30mm does very well, offering around three stops of hand-holding improvement: without VR engaged, the lens can produce sharp images consistently at a shutter speed of a 1/30 of a second; with it engaged, it can consistently produce sharp images at 1/4s, even half the time at a half-second.
 |
| Mouse over this chart to show results with IS activated. |
Zoomed in to 30mm, we also see around three stops of improvement. Without VR engaged, the lens can produce sharp images consistently at a shutter speed of a 1/60 of a second; with it engaged, it can consistently produce sharp images at 1/8s.
 |
| 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.
