Maik723

Starting shooting kids soccer game using canon 7d Markii with a canon 70-300mm IS on a monopod. Should I keep the IS engaged or turn it off?

thott Loc: GERMANY, Hessen

At the monopod: yes.
There is still enough movement keeping the
IS busy.

Db7423 Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

:thumbup: Agreed.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Canon included an owner's manual that discusses your question directly. They actually allow the user to decide for themself whether or not IS should be engaged. Good reading.

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Canon recommends the use of IS with a monopod. Having said that, if you are shooting in daylight at higher shutter speeds, then IS is superfluous. If you are shooting under the lights at slower shutter speeds, then it is a big help.

Psergel Loc: New Mexico

I did a little experiment just the other day.

Using my 7DII and my Tamron 150-600 on a monopod, I did a ton of shots of a trailer parked in a driveway about 200' down the road from my house.
The trailer had a little metallic sticker on the back that had the name and address of the manufacturer.
Even at fairly high (1/1000) shutter speeds, I was able to get more clear shots of the sticker with IS on than with it off.

jeryh Loc: Oxfordshire UK

Turn it off !

Picdude Loc: Ohio

:thumbup: Yep, that's what I have found.

idrabefi Loc: Michigan

I shot THOUSANDS of images when my daughter played HS soccer. I used a Canon 7D and 70-300 L atop a monopod. Almost all images were taken at field level either at the 18, near the corners, or behind and to the side of the net where "face" shots were very common. Almost all were taken with IS off unless lighting was very poor. Many of the players used the images as their FB profile pics, but the quality was enough to print 20"x30" (if I recall correctly) posters for distribution at the season end banquets. I recommend you try with and without to view what works for you.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Leave IS on.

In fact, with that lens you can leave it on all the time, unless you happen to need to save a little battery power in your camera. And I mean only a little bit of power. In my fifteen years experience and many hundreds of thousands of images shot with numerous Canon IS lenses, it really doesn't use very much juice. I've never tested the difference formally, but feel that during long shoot days, I get almost the same number of shots out of camera and lens with IS on, as with it off or compared to non-IS lenses. At the same time, I have frequently benefited from leaving IS on, been able to get shots that likely wouldn't have been possible without it.

With that lens, when IS isn't needed - such as when camera and lens are locked down solidly on a tripod so that these is absolutely no movement - the lens will automatically turn off IS itself. This is true of most Canon IS lenses. Only a few are known to not do this (28-135, 24-105L, 300/4L, original 100-400L, old 75-300).

I nearly always leave IS on. Even with three of those lenses known to need it turned off on a tripod... mainly because I tend to only use those three lenses handheld or on a monopod... not on a tripod. They're just the size/type of lens that lend themselves to that kind of use.

Two other times you may need or want to turn off IS are when shooting video certain ways and when shooting very precisely framed and composed stills. The reason is that with IS on there can be a slow "image drift" (you'll see it in the viewfinder). This doesn't effect most still shooting at all, but may be an issue with video (fixed position camera, on a tripod) and very carefully and precisely composed still shots (also most likely on a tripod).

Again, in the rare instances where IS becomes a problem, with Canon's in-lens stabilization you'll be able to see it occurring in the viewfinder and can simply turn it off then. It will do no harm to the lens or camera. Worse that can happen is a lost image.

In fact, IS left on will help stabilize the image in the viewfinder, too. And much like it does with binoculars, it can be helpful to the user, even at higher shutter speeds, especially with longer telephoto lenses and when tracking moving subjects.

This all applies only to Canon cameras and lenses with IS... those are what I've been using for about 15 years. I have less personal experience with and no idea about Nikon VR, Tamron VC, Sigma OS, the new Tokina stabilization, or the in-camera stabilization used by Olympus, Pentax and Sony, or others. Canon pioneered image stabilization in SLRs and their lenses. All the others have followed, but their method of stabilization and systems used to do so are different. They have to be.... Canon's are patented, I'm sure. So other manufacturers' stabilization very likely performs somewhat differently than Canon's and may need to be treated differently to get the best out of it.

Brian in Whitby Loc: Whitby, Ontario, Canada

Some lenses have two modes of IS. IS 1 for total image stability and IS 2 for movement in the horizontal plane. I sue IS 2 with my Sigmas 150-500 mm lens