VR - how useful is it at very high shutter speed?

<p>Does VR help at all when shooting at high speed - for example, 1/1250s, 1/2000s or even higher? In fact, does turning it on hurt sharpness, instead of helping, when shooting at very high speed?</p>

<p>This question is not about whether VR should be on or off on a tripod.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>mary, to be honest, i wonder the same thing. personally, anything over 1/1000 i shut it off and i am sure i get sharper pics. </p>

<p>If VR is parked properly and VR remained turned Off, the floating optical element is in optimal parked position, and the picture sharpness would be also the best possible from the system, if there is no shake of lens/camera.</p>

<p>I find VR useful on 70-300 VR, where at 300mm in dark places, cannot afford fast shutter speed.<br>

I do not use much of VF on the 70-200/2.8 VR, since the lens in faster and on D700 high ISO can afford to not use VR. In dark places I would rather use 1.4 prime lenses or a tripod/monopod.</p>

<p>Hi Mary, I don't think there would be an observable difference with VR On or Off at high shutter speed - it might be worth trying empirically. </p>

<p>My reasoning: VR would still be correcting low frequency shake to the best of its ability, but because its operation is imperfect, the fractional pick-off point (ie, the precise shutter actuation point) might fall either in its perfectly corrected spot or not; a crapshoot that will average out to be about the same as having VR-Off. </p>

<p>disengaging VR can make a lens like the 70-200 AF a bit snappier, in my experience. but yeah, it's not much use at 1/250 and faster, unless you are rolling through bumpy terrain.</p>

<p>My VR experience is limited to the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR version I shooting hand held. VR is useful at steadying the lens for really slow shutter speeds, typically 1/120th and slower. Anything faster than this level and I get much better results / more keepers with VR switched off. </p>

<p>VR at fast shutter speeds can adversely influence image quality. Turn it off for anything above 1/250 sec.</p>

<p>The most obvious sign of bad VR impact is small highlights turning into niggles instead of pin-points. Not always so obvious unless you have seen it a few times is background blurs that appear strange or smeared on one side of the frame.</p>

<p>Fairly comprehensive article on the subject by Thom Hogan: http://bythom.com/nikon-vr.htm</p>

<p>My experience with VR (70-200vr1 and 70-300vr) is that high shutter speeds have an adverse effect on sharpness, but it's not on every shot.</p>

<p>What is a niggle?</p>

<p>I like what Thom says at the article above. I've been turning VR off on my one VR lens unless and until I need it.</p>

<p>I wonder if or why, respectively, the software in the lens is not smart enough to just look at the current exposure time and simply switch VR of at quicker than say, 1/f or some reasonable value. Should not be a problem to implement, if the communication channel between camera and lens allows them to talk about exposure time.</p>

 

<p>The VR can only sample the image quickly enough to keep up with 1/500s or so. Anything much faster than that I switch it off. It definitely seems to hurt sharpness on some images shot at very fast speeds, such as 1/2000 from my own experience. Maybe I should do some formal testing.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

<p>For all that many of us revere the old reciprocal of focal length for the minimum hand-holding speed on a lens, there can be a observable amount of movement even at high speeds. I have a pretty steady hand, but I have noticed some occasional slight motion blur on a 500mm lens, even shooting above 1/1000. Admittedly, one has to look at the image at 100% to detect this. Whether the VR (IS, whatever) is capable of improving that level of motion or not, is another question; and the lenses in question are unstabilized mirror lenses anyhow. By the way, there can be motion blur on wide lenses too, it's just too small in the picture to matter, perhaps below the resolution of film or sensor.</p>

<p>I find VR useful precisely around 1/FL; normally only results that are marginally acceptable for small prints at 1/FL speeds are obtained hand held at those speeds without VR. I need to go at least 1/(2-3*FL) before tripod level sharpness is obtained without VR. VR results in close to (but not quite) tripod level sharpness from 1/(0.5*FL) to 1/(1.5*FL); occasionally a good result can be obtained at very slow speeds (such as 1/15s) but since I won't live forever, I don't care about wasting my time on such low probability shots when I could be using a faster lens at faster speeds, and avoid the problem entirely. I've done my share of trying and don't care about doing any more. Moments pass quickly, I don't want to waste them using shutter speeds that don't guarantee a desired result at just when it is needed.</p>

<p>Oh thank you folks for your excellent responses, especially to Bjorn for setting the estimated cutoff at 1/250s for normal lenses.</p>

<p>This issue has bothered me for quite a while, especially during my recent travel trips to third world countries where I needed to hand hold most of the shots, many times shooting from a moving vehicle, helicopter, or from a boat. I did notice that <strong><em>sometimes</em></strong> VR seemed to have a relatively negative effect on sharpness. But I was never sure because there might have been other intervening variables.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>My understanding is that VR helps the auto-focus sensor read the image for more accurate auto-focusing. This is the reason that Nikon and Canon choose to put the VR in the lens and not in the body at the image sensor.</p>

<p>As JDM says it would still depend on the focal length of the lens, especially if it's a long tele with a TC added. Action photogs shooting Nikon or Canon also regularly point to VR/IS helping steady the image in the viewfinder and thus making it easier to track flying birds etc without clipping wings, tails or beaks at the image edges. I'm a Sony shooter so instead using sensor stabilization which I almost always leave on at 600mm or above, even when mounted on a tripod+gimbal, for all but the absolutely stillest subjects.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>My understanding is that VR helps the auto-focus sensor read the image for more accurate auto-focusing. This is the reason that Nikon and Canon choose to put the VR in the lens and not in the body at the image sensor.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have never heard this before. I'm tempted to say "p'shaw", but it doesn't necessarily not make sense... Anybody?</p>

<p>Of course, if the image contents projected on the AF sensor shift laterally, the signal from the sensor will change all the time, leading to frequent hunting and out of focus pictures. If the subject is still or moving linearly, it wouldn't be surpring that VR helps stabilize the AF signal. However, when the subject moves in changing directions, and the photographer follows this movement by turning the camera quickly, VR could very well do more harm than good.</p>

<p>Just in case someone reads this thread in the context of deciding whether to buy a VR or non-VR lens: Back when I was deciding how to replace my 70-300 used on a crop sensor when I moved to a full-frame camera, I tried an original Bigma (50-500). Fast shutter speed or no, my problem was that I couldn't hand-hold the thing steadily enough to frame the image properly - although at the time I was trying it on my old camera, so I was effectively trying to hand-compose with a 800mm lens. VR makes an enormous difference - when trying to compose with my 150-500 OS Sigma, the viewfinder is clearly wobbling until the OS kicks in, after which I can frame (and focus) exactly. It took me two minutes of experiment in a shop to decide between the OS 150-500 and non-OS 50-500. Even if you don't need VR to <i>take</i> the shot, having it to <i>frame</i> the shot has a lot of merit.<br />

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When I got my non-VR 500mm prime, I wasn't so bothered about whether I could take stable shots (usable f/4 compared with the f/11 I used on the Sigma cancelled out the OS advantage), but I did budget for a tripod and head upgrade so that I could compose properly.<br />

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By that argument, it would be kind of nice if you could use VR during composition and turn it off when the shutter activates - but I suspect that's a bit tricky to do, technically.</p>