24-70mm f/2.8L Shaky?

[aaron_johnston]

I am using a 10D with a 28-135 IS (w/ Canon UV filter and hood) and am

generally pleased with the lens. Having received my tax refund,

however, I am thinking about upgrading to an L. The 24-70L seems to

get the best marks as a good walk-around lens. I'm sold on the image

quality but I am worried about how much shake I should expect without

the Image Stabilization I am used to on the 28-135. I am not a pro and

my style is best described as run-and-shoot. I do take time to compose

but I also like to bag images on the fly. I understand the 24-70 is

fast to focus, but is the lack of IS and my somewhat shaky hand going

to ruin the day?

[goulden]

it's a heavy lens so that can often limit the shake you get from using a really light lens. that's the principle of the steadycam in film, the weight makes the camera more stable.

 

I use the 24-70 as my primary lens and regularly shoot at 1/30th even at the 70mm end with very little blur. at that kind of speed, I normally shoot at least 4-5 shots and though some will have shake visable I'll geerally always get one pretty sharp.

[grant g]

Just watch your shutter speeds. The 24-70L is excellent even wide open, and produces much better pictures than my 17-85 IS.

 

While I would like the 24-70/2.8 to have IS, I find that in general I would prefer to have f/2.8 instead of f/5.6 and IS.

[pto189]

The 24-70L is heavy. But don't worry about the stability of the lens. It doesn't need IS to get a sharp picture. I suggest you to try the lens with your 10D at a local shop to get the real feeling about its weight. The combination of 10D, 24-70, and 550 or 580 flash is a perfect match but really heavy if you carry the set and move arround for a long time.

[digitmstr]

For really slow shutter speeds (if/when necessary) you can always brace yourself using one of your knee and your elbow as a tripod of sort.

 

This shot of a room in the Science Museum in Los Angeles was taken with a 10D (with battery grip) and the 24-70L at 1/2 sec. using the method above.<div></div>

[christopher_bibbs]

A friend of mine has minor tremors in her hands and found that she just had to use slightly faster shutter speeds to avoid hand shake. So the question is, when you turn of the IS, how slow can you shoot and keep the image sharp? (Hint: you have a 10D so you can run a few experiments).

[tony_san2]

I wouldn't worry too much about about shake, since it is an f2.8 lense. It's about 1-2 stops

faster than the 28-135, so you should be able to get faster shutter speeds. Also keep in

mind that it's a medium wide angle to short telephoto. Typically, these lenses don't really

have a strong need for IS (compared to a 300mm telephoto). When I first took looked at the

results from this lense, I was quite amazed by it's sharpness and clarity.

[steve_dunn2]

<p>There's a little switch on your 28-135 which simulates a non-IS lens ... that won't tell you how much a 24-70 would shake in your hands, but it will tell you how much a 28-135 non-IS would shake. That will give you a reasonable first estimate.</p>

[digitmstr]

As a side note (but very much related to this topic) if you find yourself in a situation in which you have no choice but to shoot with slow shutter speed without IS you can use the continous shooting mode on your camera. One of the frames from the sequence will be steadier than the others, always. It's like a makeshift IS if you will...

[aaron_johnston]

Thanks for helping a budding amateur out. I've tried practice shots on my 28-135 with IS off and found mixed results. The f/2.8 combined with the heavier weight of the lens are definitely encouraging factors. As for trying out the lens, I feel bad wasting a dealer's time because they can never come close to matching online prices. Maybe this is something I need to get over, though.

[clauder]

I don't think it gives that much more shake than the 28-135 without IS... be aware though that this lens is VERY heavy (I use it on a 10D with the BG-ED3 attached and 2 batts... try lugging that beast around all day :->)

[phyrpowr]

Learned the "poor man's IS" at a Nikon School: shoot five shots on full auto mode, 1, 4 & 5 will probably unusable, but 3 and/or 4 should be nice and sharp, within reasonable lighting

 

I do this with my IS lenses even, if the light is super low. Am a running shooter myself