How often do you use IS?

[jimstrutz]

17-55, 28-135, 70-300. I have it on all the time except when using a tripod. IS works great in combination with a monopod. I do a lot of indoor marginal light photography and find that IS works well for me even with wide lenses. It is more effective with longer lenses, but at 17mm it provides a stop or two of additional hand hold ability, and sometimes that's all I need.

 

Some Canon IS lenses work fine on a tripod and some don't. With the ones that don't, leaving IS on *might* degrade image sharpness when mounted on a sturdy tripod. Perhaps the best option is to use a cheap flimsy tripod instead. :)

[nels]

I never actually use the IS on my 24-105 or 70-200.

 

I simply bought it to impress my mother-in-law.

[richard_hopkins]

"Lester Wareham , feb 20, 2007; 07:49 a.m.

I have two IS lenses, the 300 f4 IS and the 24-105 f4 IS. I turn the 300mm off on tripod because this older IS unit is known to be unstable in that condition. The more modern zoom IS unit should detect it is 'on tripod', I found it seems to be fine for tripod use.

An additional note that with the 300mm I found Mode 2 IS was about a stop better than Mode 1 IS on a monopod but handheld it did not make much difference.

 

I have some tests of IS performance here. http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/index.htm"

 

 

Hello Lester,

 

From tests I did some years ago, I found that mirror slap was a significant cause of blurring at shutter speeds from about 1/8sec to 1/30sec. This makes logical sense to me.

 

But modern IS or VR should be able to eliminate this. I wonder if you have thought about repeating your IS tests at these slower speeds?

 

Best Regards,

 

Richard.

[arni_kjartansson]

I don't turn it off unless on a tripod or if I want motion blur.

[lester_wareham]

Richard Hopkins: "From tests I did some years ago, I found that mirror slap was a significant cause of blurring at shutter speeds from about 1/8sec to 1/30sec. This makes logical sense to me.

 

But modern IS or VR should be able to eliminate this. I wonder if you have thought about repeating your IS tests at these slower speeds? "

 

Hi Richard, if you work your way through the test pages you will see the 300mm tests are between 1/8 through to 1/250 http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/EF_300mm_f4L_IS_no_tc/index.htm

 

The 24mm tests are between 1/2 through 1/60 (Nominally) http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/EF_24_105mm_f4L_IS_24mm/index.htm

 

The 105mm tests are between 1/4 through 1/500 http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/EF_24_105mm_f4L_IS_105mm/index.htm

 

To get meaningfull results with TCs on the 300mm higher speeds were needed so these cover 1/30 to 1/750 ish for the 300mm +1.4X http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/EF_300mm_f4L_IS_1_4X/index.htm

 

and for the 300mm + 2X 1/30 to 1/500 http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/LensTests/IS_Tests/EF_300mm_f4L_IS_2X/index.htm

 

It does rather depend on the light available during the test but the mirror slap range is covered as well as possible for the focal length.

 

Thanks

 

Lester

[richard_hopkins]

I must pay more attention. I'll have a dig around. Cheers.

 

Richard.