Why I don't think we'll ever see IBIS

[Braineack]

Under the arm of Lady Liberty

 

[Derrel]

Under the arm of Lady Liberty

A fantastic fireworks photo. Was it made with a stabilized lens?

 

[TWX]

According to Canon Rumors IBIS is already confirmed in the upcoming R5 and R6 bodies. However I would be surprised to ever see IBIS in any of their DSLRs.

I won't completely ignore rumors but I take them with a healthy grain of salt. Even if the engineers develop the technology and that development work is the source of the rumors, that doesn't mean that management will necessarily include it if they feel the stronger business case is to leave it out.

What wouldn't surprise me is if they held any such developments in-reserve, launching the feature as a mid-life improvement once they felt their existing sales were basically sated. EOS/EF was around ~30 years before RF, halfway through we saw digital and lens-based IS along with APS-C/EFS. If RF-mount sells well it might be another decade before Canon feels they need to pump more life into it with a major technical improvement like IBIS. If it doesn't sell well then that might argue the case to introduce it sooner.

Should they ever bring IBIS, another concern might be limiting the feature to Canon-official RF lenses. That also might be good reason for them to wait, such that more photographers aren't really using EF lenses much and have a selection of RF, lest they infuriate owners.

 

[petrochemist]

In-body image stabilization cuts down on the ultimate long-term reliability of the body , perhaps not by much, but it's a small factor.

It may be a factor but it's not caused issues in any of my stabilized bodies - the oldest of which was made in 2009.

Would it not equally be the case that lens based stabilization would play a part in the reliability of lenses? Given lenses typically have a useful life well beyond camera bodies this is probably a more significant factor.

 

[Derrel]

Agreed...a system based around objects Jiggling around at 500 Hertz is less reliable than a system in which objects are fixed in place.

 

[petrochemist]

Should they ever bring IBIS, another concern might be limiting the feature to Canon-official RF lenses. That also might be good reason for them to wait, such that more photographers aren't really using EF lenses much and have a selection of RF, lest they infuriate owners.

There's no technical reason to limit IBIS to RF lenses.
If they did that, it would be very spiteful & I suspect it would cause many EF shooters to switch to the Nikon Z.

 

[TWX]

In-body image stabilization cuts down on the ultimate long-term reliability of the body , perhaps not by much, but it's a small factor.

It may be a factor but it's not caused issues in any of my stabilized bodies - the oldest of which was made in 2009.

Would it not equally be the case that lens based stabilization would play a part in the reliability of lenses? Given lenses typically have a useful life well beyond camera bodies this is probably a more significant factor.

I expect it comes down to two things, first being which type of electromechanical IS is more demanding, as if it may be less hard on the mechanism for it to be in-lens versus in-camera depending on how much physical movement is required in each point, and the second being how much usage a lens sees in its lifetime compared to the body. Obviously someone that uses only one lens and uses that lens across many cameras will use that lens-based IS system more than they would have used IBIS in any given camera body, but someone that uses multiple lenses through the years across multiple cameras might not have any given lens might not rack-up the kind of usage of the feature per-lens that a camera body might see if all lenses have to use IBIS.

I tend to cycle through my lenses, but I'm also at a point where as an amateur/hobbyist I'm starting to see the implications of what a given lens can do for me, and starting to realize the nature of the gaps in my own knowledge, so I'm in the habit of trying-out my various lenses to see what kind of performance I can get versus just chasing things like narrow depth of field. I may use my 17-55mm f/2.8 quite a bit but I'm playing with my 18-135mm when I don't need or don't want to go as wide as f/2.8, and I might even dig out the kit lens if I want to lighten the package as much as possible. But then again, I acknowledge that the RF-mount isn't really targeted toward me, it's targeted more towards highly experienced amateurs or professionals that should know what they're doing. Whether such users change lenses a lot or not undoubtedly is based on what they like to take pictures of, and how diverse they like to go with their efforts.

 

[Braineack]

Under the arm of Lady Liberty

A fantastic fireworks photo. Was it made with a stabilized lens?

Yes, the Tamron 24-70 shot at 1/50sec from a boat using VC

 

[Derrel]

There you go! Stabilized lens from a boat!

 

[JBPhotog]

Should they ever bring IBIS, another concern might be limiting the feature to Canon-official RF lenses. That also might be good reason for them to wait, such that more photographers aren't really using EF lenses much and have a selection of RF, lest they infuriate owners.

There's no technical reason to limit IBIS to RF lenses.
If they did that, it would be very spiteful & I suspect it would cause many EF shooters to switch to the Nikon Z.

I think it has more to do with the developments in IBIS technology. Since 5 stops are now possible in camera(Z7) and many lens designs just don't have the optical formula or internal real-esate, I think you will see a shift from IS(VR or OS) to IBIS across many brands. The benefit of IBIS is any lens now has a stabilized platform including adapted lenses.

 

[Original katomi]

Question. What will happen if you use an IS lens with a IBIS body, will one react with the other

 

[JBPhotog]

Question. What will happen if you use an IS lens with a IBIS body, will one react with the other

Apparently so, the VR and IBIS work in conjunction with each other. I have no personal experience with this but owners of the Nikon Z series with the FTZ lens adapter say VR lenses still operate in VR. I am not sure if that gains them more stability or one axis of the VR lens is cancelling out the same axis of the IBIS.

 

[Braineack]

I'm sure the body wouldn't activate the lens stabilization...

 

[photoflyer]

To stay competitive Canon will have develope IBIS and the rumors suggest they have. I will be interested to see if first generation IBIS is better than early generation lens IS. I have a 300 mm f4 L prime that is old enough to have first-generation image stabilization. Perhaps turning IS off on this lens and turning IBIS on in the camera will actually provide better stabilization.

 

[petrochemist]

I think it has more to do with the developments in IBIS technology. Since 5 stops are now possible in camera(Z7) and many lens designs just don't have the optical formula or internal real-esate, I think you will see a shift from IS(VR or OS) to IBIS across many brands. The benefit of IBIS is any lens now has a stabilized platform including adapted lenses.

IBIS has always worked with any lens - I used it with M42 & T2 mount lenses ten years ago, and I think also with a 1930s kodak astigmat.
Generally It has worked about as well as lens based stabilization of a similar generation, until we get to long telephotos and unlike lens only IS it can deal with rotation around the lens axis.

Modern systems that can use both are the ultimate where the lens is compatible otherwise the two both compensate for all the movement & effectively give the same shake as no stabilization. This is what I got when putting my Bigmos on my Pentax unless I turned stabilization off on one of them.