I.S. and imperfect tripods

[Robert Roaldi]

The conventional wisdom seems to be to turn I.S. off when using stable tripods. What about shooting long tele (say, 800 mm) and all you have available is a good but not perfect tripod. If you can see slight movement in the viewfinder due to wind, etc., does it make sense to leave the I.S. on? Anyone have experience with this?

I'm shooting m4/3s Olympus and looking at purchasing a last century manual focus 400 mm lens, what can I expect?

[shadowblade]

Yes, turn on IS for that. It'll help with slower shutter speeds, in the 1/2-1/60 range or so.

But don't expect good results with long, multisecond exposures under these conditions with a long lens, even with IS. Sometimes, the only solution for long landscapes is to use two tripods.