Talk:Image stabilization

message: Can we get some information about the effectiveness of optical/mechanical stabilization (and maybe even digital stabilization)?
Right now I can't really tell if this technology is just there to sell more cameras or if it markedly improves the quality of the pictures.
Mazin07C₪T 01:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have personal experience with stabilization technology, as my camera is a bit of an oldie, but according to this 2004 Shutterbug article , it is very real and makes a marked difference. Eikonografos 22:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Personal experience is that if it is available (Slow shutter speeds and/or no flash makes it unavailable), you can literally swing the camera like a sword and take a picture, and it will come out perfectly fine. 69.59.108.79 21:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "personal exsperience"? really? Slow shutters and no flash ARE EXACTLY WHERE THE IS/VR technology is used. You don't need IS/VR with fast shutters and or flash. Or tripods. Ken (talk) 15:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

text: This is a complete over-exageration. Swinging the camera 'like a sword' will create a blurry image at all but the fastest shutter speeds. If the lens isn't pointed at all in the same direction during the shutter release, IS can't magically move the ENTIRE lens back. Ctrlfreak13 05:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Personal experience is that it does work effectively. A 2001 comparison of Nikon and Canon IS lenses here http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/255/canon-image-stabilization-vs-nikon-vibration-reduction-page1.html concludes "Both dramatically improved our chances of getting acceptably sharp handheld pictures at slower shutter speeds" Chrisjohnson 22:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: the amount varies and the '3-4' is actually an 'up to' caveat/marketing-ese. Earlier IS/VR could gain 1-2 stops, later designs more. As always, the real answer depends on light, contrast, the amount of movement and the type of movement. Ken (talk) 15:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

text: My testing of Pentax K20D gives 4 stops with very high percentage, and can even give more than 6 (!) stops. This is with the latest firmware. Without SR/IS I don't want to shoot under the "limit", so I'm not a human tripod.
--88.195.100.60 (talk) 08:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Added a video with software image stabilization. Thumbnail is missing, but meh. --Oggencoder (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effectiveness 

message: Are there any drawbacks to using the image stabilization feature of a camera?
:Some(many/most/all?)digital cameras require you turn off IS when the camera is static, such as when using a tripod.  Otherwise, it can blur the image.
:IS uses more power, so you may experience shorter battery life when IS is turned on. Ctrlfreak13 13:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some claim (I have never seen data/proof) that if you use IS when the camera is on a tripod that the image can be degraded due to the slight vibration of the now-restrained IS gyroscope. It is a plausible theory but again I have never seen any definitive data to back up the claim. Ken (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image Stabilization drawbacks 

message: Optical image stabilization is certainly not specific to Canon; nor is the use of OIS as an abbreviation.  I don't know if the precise description recently added applies to other manufacturers, though, so I've tried to rewrite in a way that preserves the information without being misleading. --Steve Pucci | talk 21:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optical image stabilization as Canon-specific term 

message: Hi:
There's a bit in the article but I'm not certain the performance benefits are addressed. This may require a bit of research to answer as it's probably an abstruse design philosophy difference but Leica, Nikon and Canon all put vibration elimination in the lenses while a company like Pentax has opted to put it into the camera body. 
What are the advantages and disadvantages from an engineering point of view? Weight is covered in the article but what about performance and longevity of the mechanism? The article also says that in-lens vibration eliminators are fine-tuned for the lens but how much of a difference in performance and reliability is there? How about in their zoom lenses?
On the other hand, Pentax aims for consumer rather than pro SLRs and may sell image stabilization as being on all the time even when it doesn't need to be (ie below 100 mm); or for hand-held flashless night photography but these are marketing rather than technical reasons.
:Of course image stabilisation is useful for focal length below 100mm. What are you talking about? It may be a marketing reason to claim that image stabilisation is not needed in a fast fifty, but boy it helps at 1/20. ClassA42 (talk) 05:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: not sure where you got the idea that it was useless under 85mm, but it is not limited in that way. IS/VR are very good for macro photography when a tripod isn't possible. The in-lens stabilization allows for fine-tuning based on the size and characteristics of the elements. But it makes the lenses more expensive. Placing it in the body keeps the proce of the lens down, and allows the feature to be used on older glass. Also the gyro mechanism would be smaller due to the smaller mass of the sensor vs a glass element. Ken (talk) 18:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Engineering choices: In body versus in-lens 

message: We'd have to hear from engineers working on the problem but full frame sensors aren't massless and the frame of electromagnets used to jiggle the sensor about may have acceptable performance in mid-sized and small photo sensors but not have the responsiveness needed in full frame.
: I wonder if the lens moves in the optical systems weigths more or less than a sensor? Doesn't Sony already have a stabilized full frame sensor camera? --88.195.100.60 (talk) 08:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, the A850/900 have a stabilized full frame sensor. ClassA42 (talk) 05:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  In lens versus in body 

message: In recent years, it has become commonplace to use phrases such as "times less than", or "times smaller than", et cetera, to describe something smaller than a reference magnitude. The word "times" is a multiple of the original magnitude, so that when one does the arithmetic, one obtains a negative magnitude, several times as large as the original, which is nearly always an absurdity.
Instead of saying "one-fifth the size of", one is likely to see "five times less than".  Let's say the original dimension is 100mm, and the new dimension is 20mm. Five times 100 mm is 500 mm, so five times less is 100 - 500, which is -400(mm). We're getting into a strange realm, indeed, suggesting the smile of the Cheshire Cat (Lewis Carroll).
(For fun -- Is that smile a negative quantity in the alpha channel?)
One might conclude that "five times less than" is a misguided attempt to write at second-grade (US schools) level, assuming that "one-fifth" is either too clumsy, or beyond the understanding of most readers. The USA has quite-serious problems in elementary and secondary education[1], but I don't like to pander to such weaknesses.
[1] Charles J. Sykes, _Dumbing Down Our Kids_, St. Martin's Press, New York 1995 
In this article, I maintained the numerical factors greater than one by elaborating the text somewhat; perhaps I could have been more concise. (Fairly sure that one will note the usage of such expressions as 1/1.5 , 1/1.6, etc. when referring to vidicon equivalents in video cameras.)
:See idiom; logical or not, this one appears in thousands of books in English.  Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Logical absurdity of "times less than" and similar phrasing

message: The situation regarding "times greater than" is much less distressing. A three-meter wide door is two times (two meters) wider than a one-meter-wide door; "wider" describes the dimension added to the original, not the multiple of the original. It is three times as wide as the original, of course.
In elementary mathematical terms, we are comparing [n] (times as...) versus [n-1] (times greater than); in this case, 3 vs. 2. As [n] increases, the difference between the two becomes less important in everyday (but not engineering!) terms.
Nikevich (talk) 16:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "Times greater than"

message: "Optical SteadyShot™ digital image stabilization compensates for camera shake and helps prevent blur by capturing two photos at high shutter speeds and combining them into a single clear image.³ "  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.66.188.210 (talk) 23:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  sony "Optical Steadyshot" is digital 

message: I do not know how to upload a new photo to Wikipedia so I apologize for this, but the image comparison of IS Off/IS On is awfully large and I was able to optimize it without any readily apparent artifacts. The optimized version is available here:
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/1897/optimizediscomparison.jpg 98.203.152.242 (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Not needed, but thanks anyway. I have reduced the reproduction size in the article a bit.  Easy to adjust. Hertz1888 (talk) 08:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images used in article 

message: "With the increasing popularity of video in DSLRs, it is worth noting that sensor-shift stabilization does not function when recording video. The sensor must lock in place during video recording. Lens-based stabilization systems don't suffer from this drawback."
see http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/K7/K7VIDEO.HTM
"The Pentax K-7's body-based image stabilization can be used when recording movies"
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWNtOoLZjW4  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.124.88.95 (talk) 16:37, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video and sensor based stabilization 

message: We need a picture of the correction mechanism. I found one on YouTube once -- it looks like it uses a pair of voice coils to move a group of lenses. Also, it would be good to show a ray diagram of that lens group to show how it is shifting the image without refocusing it or adding aberration. Resources section of this page shows the IS group of a 200mm prime lens -- it looks like a negative asphere, an air gap, then a concave surface of a positive meniscus cemented to a biconcave element all near the stop after it. I suppose that means if you shift the group down, an on-axis ray will be steered up by the first element, up a little more by the surface after the air space, then refocused... —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 12:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo request 

message: I've toned-down the anti-digital-stabilization rhetoric and deleted this as unclear:
* The main disadvantage with this solution is that motion blur from shake under medium to low light conditions will be impossible to correct by the post processing images stabilization system, so in real life this will only work well for short exposure times (daylight).
(was that originally referring to the video technique 2 paras above ?)
and added
*Others are now also using digital signal processing (DSP) to reduce blur, for example by sub-dividing the exposure into several shorter exposures in rapid succession, discarding blurred ones, re-aligning the sharpest sub-exposures and adding them back together again.
with citation from Sony spec. "reduced subject blur by combining six successive frames into a single image with less noise"
Feel free to add other links - I'm sure Sony aren't the only ones to find a way. 
There's also a mode to reduce subject movemement, as well, by selecting the sharpest sub-exposure for each region of the image, like Focus stacking, but it's harder to explain.
--195.137.93.171 (talk) 06:36, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nikon had (maybe still does in point n shoot models?) a technique called BSS (Best Shot Selection) that supposedly used contrast to select the 'best' shot from a series. While not techincally image stabilization, the results were often the same. I know it was used in the Coolpix 950 camera. Ken (talk) 15:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  I've toned-down the anti-digital-stabilization rhetoric 

message: There are several people on internet forums claiming IS harms Bokeh .
I doubt it !
I've started a section on Talk:Bokeh#Image_Stabilization_and_Bokeh. --195.137.93.171 (talk) 09:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adverse effect on [[Bokeh]] ? 

message: The article currently says that digital image stabilization " improves still image quality by allowing one to increase the exposure time without blurring the image." While that is true for OIS, in my experience it is not something that is typically done by EIS systems. Is there a source or cite for this?--GeekPhotog (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about claim for digital image stabilization on single image frames