Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I think you are starting off with an incorrect assumption. There are quite a few excellent quality zooms that equal or exceed the quality of primes. Not saying that primes are bad, only saying that the notion that zooms are inferior because they are zooms is anachronistic. They are heavier, more complex, more expensive, but not necessarily worse than primes. Best to take each comparison on a case by case basis.

As far as your question is concerned, stabilization does what it does at the expense of sharpness. For the best image quality use a tripod if you are at shutter speeds that will result in camera motion induced blurring. The next alternative is to raise your ISO, and the last to turn on stabilization. Generally you will not use stabilization for moving subjects, which you are likely to to be shooting with longer focal length lenses. Though excellent landscapes and shots of still subjects are done with lenses 100mm and longer. Shorter focal length lenses are less affected by camera movement, so stabilization only becomes effective at speeds slower than 1/30 sec or lower. I have handheld an 18mm lens with stabilization for 1 sec and gotten a decent shot. Not as nice as if I had used a tripod but acceptable nonetheless.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Funny you should mention that, but I'm steadier after I have a drink. I have a slight tremor in my hands (familial tremor), and if I have some alcohol, the tremor goes away. My doctor told me about that. Great doctor.

"But officer, I was drinking so I would be a better driver."

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Thoughts of a non-expert.
Prime = fixed focal length? = best/better IQ. BUT the idea of zooms is to get rid of the inconvenience and cost of multiple lenses, and the makers do their best for us with IS (VR for the Nikon clique). Again - an IS lens just cannot be as good as a non-IS lens - but the results we get with IS are likely to be better much of the time. When using a tripod non-IS lenses just have to do better - even when IS is off.
I have two bodies and two zooms, which I don't change over - I'm thinking of buying two primes and ditching the zooms.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

My personal opinion is that 35mm and below that VR is not so important, but what do I know Canon just released a 10-18mm zoom with VR.

RKL349 Loc: Connecticut

Thanks for your thoughts on this. For someone who is a novice, such as myself, your writings are always informative and points well taken. Thanks again.

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

This relates to a question that occurred to me recently. Thinking back to the time when we bought rolls of film for our cameras and there was no such thing as image stabilization, my rule of thumb was that I could hand-hold my camera and a 50mm lens if taking a 1/60 second exposure. I might get away with 1/30 of a second provided I could hold the camera especially steady.

Now, with image stabilization and zoom lenses I don't seem to have any rule of thumb to go by. I get a little nervous when taking hand-held shots of more than 1/30 second but I've had quite decent results for much longer exposures.

Does anyone have a good rule-of-thumb to suggest?

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Sorry Gene51, but I think you are wrong full stop. I would be grateful if you could advise what quality zoom you think is better than a quality prime. :)

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Just a tidbit of info copied from Thom Hogan's site on the 105mm VR micro Nikkor ""As the reproduction ratio increases from 1/30x [sic], the effects of vibration reduction gradually decrease." In other literature, Nikon has flat out said to turn off VR for macro use. What's the real answer? The manual is correct, basically. The closer you focus, the less VR has an impact on the final image. At 1:1 (the closest focus distance), it may not impart any benefit (it didn't seem to in the testing conditions I could create). So do you turn VR off when working in macro? If you're pressed up towards the limits of focus, I'd say yes--you're wasting battery life and potentially making it more difficult to hit a focus point. But if you're focused out beyond two or three feet (~.7m+), it probably makes sense to leave it on, as you'll get some benefit (though not the four stops Nikon claims for the system unless you're focusing far further out into the scene)."

That said, I don't use any VR lenses. IMHO, it's one more thing that can fail on a lens... Since I do a lot of handheld macro, I find that additional illumination (either my ring/point light or a softbox equipped speedlight) allows me to stop down my lens for additional DOF & the short duration of the flash effectively stops any movement on my part & my subjects as well....While I can see VR being a plus with longer lenses to some degree, I'd say the benefit is limited with shorter focal lengths, of course that's just my opinion...

RKL349 Loc: Connecticut

:lol:

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

I solved that issue completely by using a tripod and turning it off(canon). My last lens I bought I did not get IS/VR because I almost never use it.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

jerryc41 wrote:
Funny you should mention that, but I'm steadier after I have a drink. I have a slight tremor in my hands (familial tremor), and if I have some alcohol, the tremor goes away. My doctor told me about that. Great doctor.

"But officer, I was drinking so I would be a better driver."

When you've had a drink he's an OCIFFER.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

I guess that you had it right in the first place.
50mm = 50th, 100mm = 100th etc. But with modern ISO tech it is easy to double up - eg so that 100mm = 200th and double the ISO. That will be sharp man!

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

When considering the old "inverse rule" it is wise to consider the crop sensor, as amehta has already pointed out the angular movement is important, what many people don't consider is that the size of the sensor effectively changes both the effective focal length of the lens but it also equally effects the angular movement. The angles of the same image on a crop sensor are not the same as it would be on a full frame sensor. That should be taken into consideration when setting your shutter speed.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Back in my college days, we had a drinking game using chopsticks to drink beer :roll:

Seriously, VR (or whatever it's called by the manufacturer) certainly can't hurt on any focal length.

But while I look for stabilization on long lenses (it was one of the main reasons I switched to Canon in 2000-2001, when they were the only manufacturer with it), it is not a high priority item for me on shorter focal lengths. Lenses 100mm and less I generally can handhold very steady, after 30+ years experience.

And with macro lenses or shooting landscapes with wide lenses at smaller apertures (limited by diffraction to around f11 on my crop cameras and f16 on my full frame... I know better than to use f22), I damn well should be using a tripod anyway, so it would be my own fault if the there's camera shake.

I use a tripod a lot with some of the big long teles too... but that's different. Loose gimbal style head that allows for both pans and tilts, and it takes so little vibration to degrade a shot with a long lens, so there's still plenty for stabilization to do.

Canon has recently revised a couple lenses that I'm interested in... EF 24/2.8 and EF 35/2 were both upgraded with better USM focus drive and nicely revised optics... and had IS added. The stabilization on these doesn't impress me, but I'll likely be buying them anyway and it can't hurt. OTOH, I [I]will not be trading in my EF-S 10-22mm USM for an EF-S 10-18mm IS STM.

Higher and higher usable ISOs (thanks to both improved hardware... camera sensors and processors... and software/firmware) partially offset the need of stabilization... Or allow for it to be even more effective and for shots to be taken in even more extreme situations.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Shoot as least as fast or faster than the vocal length. At 200 mm = 1/200 of a second, etc., handheld. Is a pretty standard rule of thumb. If you have a tripod, this changes. VR is often unnecessary in my opinion, but so many think you need it. I usually shoot with a tripod and VR is not so important. Continue with the beer.