Image stabilisation

[Jonathan Cross]

I have been looking at Forum members' amazing photos of birds.  It has reminded me of advice I was given, which is to switch off all image stabilisation if using shutter speeds quicker than 1/500 second as it can fight against any intended camera movement and similarly turn it off if using a tripod.

Is this good advice?

Jonathan

[mcbroomf]

I was reading a section of one of Canon's Lenswork books recently and they said that the 1st gen lenses with OS had to have it turned off when  on a tripod but they resolved it for the next gen (ie a long time ago).  I frequently leave mine on with my Sony (by mistake) and check results of the captures indicates no issues.

Not a birder so no extensive experience with high shutter speeds and long lenses though I do use it for big stormy waves and probably the same as landscape images, forgetting to turn it off a good portion of the time.

[kers]

Nikon lenses ( and probably others ) may have the option of an action-VR ;
that is_ It uses VR to keep your view steady, but does not work at the moment of taking the photo.
Especially handy with telelenses and short shutter speeds.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

My Canon EF 70–200 has three IS settings for ‘still objects, panning, and irregular movement’.

However, I did notice something interesting when using a Canon 100 macro lens.  After carefully composing using the ‘live’ preview on the back of the camera when the shutter was slightly depressed to activate the IS the composition would move slightly.  So I turned the IS off.