Advantage of in-camera Anti-Shake!

[Akio Morita]

You see the amount of shake in the viewfinder. You can steady-up your camera a lot easier this way. I prefer it to an image that looks steady on the LCD!

[PhotoTraveler]

I've commented on this many times in other places, but just as a quickie. You often see people praise in-lens systems because they stabilize the view finder. But in reality, this is bad, as it is incompatible with biology.

By stabilizing the view finder, you do not see how much you move. So the body makes no corrective action. So you are now moving more than you would have been, thus defeating a lot of the stabilization system. Thus why in-body is great, you get stabilization, but the view in the view finder forces you to get stable. Our bodies work much like out camera bodies. We have 2 main ways we stay balanced, the low level way, and the fine tune way on top of that. Our cameras have accelerometers always measuring things and can do some stabilization even when no lens info is had. Our bodies have our inner ear which does the same. It keeps us upright, and kinda balanced, but it doesn't get us spot on. Our cameras using FL info and when available Focus Distance info to tune the stabilization. Our bodies use our eyes which do the same thing, they watch the movement and combined with triangulation know distance and keep us very steady. Since the eye is the fine tuning, anything that messes with that will have ill effects, which is the problems you get with in-lens systems. Which really isn't different than motion sickness (which some people suffer from when using in-lens stabilization and stabilized binoculars). Motion sickness is caused by movement that the eyes see but the body can't correct for. If you are driving a car, you cause the movement, so you tend to be fine, but your passenger doesn't have the wheel and thus can get sick.

A stabilized lens system is completely messing up the body. And if you want a sense of how much we need the input into our eyes to be correct, just stand up (you might need to stand on one leg to get the best feel of this). Stand and look at a spot (say something on a wall), hold yourself steady, then close your eyes quickly. You will move, plain and simple, the body just lost that fine tune control. The inner ear has to now take over. If you are a blind person, your inner ear has developed pretty good control, but still can be an issue. Now, that is a case of removing a signal. In-Lens systems are giving you something worse, bad data (no data is better than bad data). Now the body is getting conflicting results, the eye says things are good, the inner ear says somethings wrong.

In-body design with the shake indicator is exactly how it should be.

[Dr. Harout]

Totally agree wit Phototraveller.

[KevinBarrett]

Is there any advantage to using both systems or would they work against/defeat eachother? I imagine there could be at least a marginal advantage if the camera body knew how to make the systems cooperate. Certainly I would love to see Sony do this if there is an advantage to be gained; first of all, it would silence the in-body/in-lens debate, and it could drive Sony to price their unstabilized lenses like unstabilized lenses.

[Dr. Harout]

The 2 systems together will counteract. So for now, that is out of question. You might improve each alone e.g. A700 over A100, I can definitely say that A700 SSS is much better than its predecessor.

[David Kilpatrick]

Two systems do not have to counteract - Minolta used a system moving both sensor and lens group in the X1 if I remember their explanation correctly. But putting an Olympus IS lens on an Olympus stabilised body results in disaster, it's been tried, and they work against each other as Dr Harout says.

David

[01af]

'PhotoTraveler,' I agree with everything you say---except that this was an argument against in-lens stabilisation (ILS). Who cares that using ILS can make a few persons feel sick if it's working fine in every other aspect? As a matter of fact, most users feel quite comfortable with ILS---otherwise they wouldn't call the stabilised viewfinder an advantage. At least, with a stabilised viewfinder it's easier to frame your subject precisely when using a long lens hand-held.

The most-often heard claim in favour of ILS is that it was more effective, generally, than in-body stabilisation (IBS). However that's not true. In fact, both stabilising systems---ILS and IBS---do work equally well, more or less. Both offer approximately the same degree of effectiveness, in terms of the number of additional hand-holdable f-stops, or rather shutter-speed stops, compared to a non-stabilised system ... even though one particular implementation may have a slight advantage over another, both among the various ILS systems (Canon IS, Nikon VR, Sigma OS) and among the various IBS systems (Minolta AS, Sony SSS, Olympus, Pentax SR). For example, newer implementations typically are somewhat more effective than older ones.

Both principles---ILS and IBS---have their specific advantages and disadvantages. But effectiveness is not among those; that's about the same in both, even with very long telephoto lenses.

Advantages specific to ILS are:

• also stabilises the viewfinder image (but can be a disadvantage for some users/in some situations)
• also works with film (big point! ... provided you're still shooting film)

Advantages specific to IBS are:

• works with virtually all lenses, including old ones, including wide-angles and fast primes (big point! ... try that with ILS!)
• no start-up delay
• updating to the latest generation for all lenses requires purchase of just one new camera body
• consumes less power than ILS by far

Unless you're still shooting significant amounts of film, the advantages of IBS outnumber those of ILS by far. And did I mention that IBS is not less effective than ILS?

-- Olaf

[PhotoTraveler]

The stabilized view finder isn't a bad thing for some users, it's bad for all users. It just has the sickness effect on some. But all people looking through them are moving more than they should be. You simply will not be able to override your brain and get your body to hold steady when the eyes are seeing a false image.

Another issue is the long lenses. They by themselves create some stability issues, the longer the lens, the more magnification going on. So you get wobbly (body over corrects by the magnification of the lens to actual movement). But most the time, your body catches on, since it's a constant, so the body begins to somewhat adjust for this magnification and corrects, similar to how AS/SSS adjust its needs with FL info. This is largely why we move so much with those big lenses, it's not so much the weight, it's just more false image issues. Just try it with a big lens. Hold up the lens near your face or even touch the body to your forehead or check view outward with your eyes not through the lens, you won't move much, but soon as you look through the lens you will. Since you might be seeing 10x magnification, so your body over corrects as much. This is why a long lens should just be parked on a tripod. But still, this one is more manageable even when hand held since the problem will always be a ratio of movement for the same lens, say 10 to 1, every time and the whole time you use it. If you add an in-lens system to this same lens, now it's shifting the image to your eye, so it might look like a 10 to 1 shift, it might look like an 8 to 1 shift, might reverse even it's never the same, thus the body has no way to adjust. With a non-in-lens lens, give your body a bit to adjust it's feedback loop and it will zero your movement out and then you won't be to bad. Of course by then the shot may have been missed, if you had it on a tripod you would have avoided it all.

That's part of why the "In-Lens is better for telephotos" is pretty much a statement of why it is inferior. Since long lenses should be on a tripod anyways. Where in-body works great in the hand held focal lengths that people live in every day. And those ranges (sub 100mm or so) is the same range where building in-lens systems becomes a real challenge. Thus the only success there so far is F2.8 APS lenses, and F4 FF lenses, and nikons actions with their recent 2.8/24-70 and 2.8/60 macro not having VR are a strong hint of In-lens limits. I'll take the system that works where it's needed over the system that works where it's not needed any day. Still, I think in-body would manage with a 600 or 800mm lens if called upon I just don't see it as a needed thing, maybe a bit of gain on mono pods for stabilization at long focal lengths, but who knows.

In lens has some serious issues. But if you were in the early 90s trying to come up with the next big thing, and on the table was stabilization and digital, it was clear digital would take longer, so you focused on stabilization, and the only practical way to do it is in-lens with film. Now they have gone down that road and need to keep justifying it. No post film stabilization camera maker has gone in-lens, it's all in-body. Since there is basically no justification for in-lens. There has been 1 exception and that was the 1 Leica lens for Panny. But just in it being "Leica lens for Panny" explains it all. Panny had no body stabilization since Oly hadn't got there yet. And Leica had no body to sell, thus for Leica to make an in-lens lens was win win, Leica gets to show off and make more money, Panny gets stabilization. Now that 4/3rds has in-body, no more in-lens lenses there. If KM, Pentax, Oly hadn't brought out the in-body systems, you very well would have seen Canon and Nikon start to introduce them by now. But since the in-lens folks went on the defensive, they have put themselves in a position that they can't go in-body without some very well maneuvered marketing, which will happen in time. Canon and Nikon will bring in-body out in time, my money is on Nikon who has all ready done some P&S models with it.

You also have the future with EVIL's there in-lens does even less for you as there is no OVF to stabilize even if you wanted it. And if your going to make a whole new generation of lenses like Olympus will begin, that's a fine time to just go in-body design.

The only slight thing for in-lens might be AF stabilization, but I doubt in the practical world it makes a bit of difference. But still, if your moving around more than you should be, it's still experiencing that movement.

[01af]

The stabilized view finder isn't a bad thing for some users, it's bad for all users. [...]

Clearly you're having a point here ... still your statement is too simplistic. Because as a matter of fact, a stabilised viewfinder image also has an advantage or two. So let's say it has good and bad points both.

Overall, I do agree with you---all things considered, IBS is better than ILS (unless you're shooting film). And yes, I also believe that sooner or later both Canon and Nikon will be forced to introduce DSLR cameras with IBS. Question isn't if but when.

-- Olaf

[Dr. Harout]

...sooner or later both Canon and Nikon will be forced to introduce DSLR cameras with IBS. Question isn't if but when.

-- Olaf

Waiting impatiently for that day to have a great relief and a nice laugh on fellow photographers who are persuaded that N &/or C are always right.

[Greg Beetham]

Yep, despite their best efforts in marketing their legacy system (I think that if they keep it up long enough C&N might even convince themselves), there is still no getting around the fact that we only have to buy stabilization ONCE.
They really don't have much choice now anyway, both systems (as far as I know) already have made lots of lenses redundant over the years involving much outlay for the users too update all over again...can you imagine the size of the dummy spit if they turn around now and say we might go AS after all, saying...oh btw you can still use your expensive IS lenses...just don't turn AS on on the new bodies
Greg

[bossel]

Why is this posted as off-topic? btw, I had also pointed out earlier on that other site, that a non stabilized viewfinder might push you to keep the kamera more steady - thoug at long focal length (>300mm or so) a stabilized vf might help in framing better!