Tripods and image stabilization

[Overread17 5]

Here's the thing VR/IS/OS has a period of time where it has to activate, it has to move the internal parts that provide the stabilization and then detect from that motion if there is shake and how to best to compensate for it. As a result unless you're half depressing the shutter button before taking a shot (and thus the stabilization is running) it will take a moment to "kick into" effect - for fast snapshots this means it won't help remove handshake and the spinning up cycle can cause additional blur of its own.

Tripods are similar, it has to spin up - detect that its not got any shake and then account for that. So again those fast snapshots where you go from nothing to fully pressing the shutter can show problems. Furthermore its not perfect, sometimes it might detect the tripod sometimes it might not; long exposures also tend to fool it and will cause blur.

As a result I always turn the IS/OS/VR off when tripod shooting; I'd also suggest turning if off if you're shooting action shots in a very fast environment where you're both not giving the stabilizer the small amount of time to spin up and also where you're shutter speed is already fast enough to counter natural handshake*

Note if you are panning shots on the tripod use the Mode 2 as (on most) it is nearly always the panning mode that counters shake in one direction only and is designed to allow you to smoothly pan shots whilst on a tripod/monopod.


*note under these conditions having VR/IS/OS on can provide help with framing a shot since it reduces the shake you see through the viewfinder which makes it viable to have it running whilst tracking a subject for a shot.