bnsf

If you are shooting with any camera use your better judgment, if all fails and you have a second shot make your camera adjustments take your shot and hope your adjustments worked.

Raptor

I shoot with a sony a68. Does your comment pertain to all sony camera types?

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I'm shooting with Sony mirrorless bodies. Not sure about an A68?

bwa

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Varies according to brand and model. Read The *Fine* Manual.

smussler Loc: Land O Lakes, FL - Formerly Miller Place, NY

Best response. . .

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I believe you are using Sony gear.. if so, you should check their website for advice about OSS. Or, if using Sigma (OS) or other manufacturers' stabilized lenses, check their website for advice.

I can only tell you about Canon IS, because that's what I know and use. In fact, I switched to Canon gear in 2001 in part because they were the only manufacturer offering image stabilization at that time and it was a reqal "game changer", especially on telephoto lenses I use a lot. Apparently many of other people appreciated it, too... because Canon "big white" telephotos soon became by far the most-used lenses at sporting events, in particular.

MOST Canon lenses do not need IS turned off when the camera & lens are "locked down" on a tripod. Out of maybe 50 or 60 IS lenses they've made to date, only five that I know of have to have it turned off, and most of those were among the earliest to incorporate IS and use a more "primitive" version of it.

The Canon lenses where IS should be turned off by the user are:

EF 75-300mm IS USM... the first lens to get IS (~1995), discontinued many years ago
EF 28-135mm IS USM... 2nd or 3rd lens with IS, discontinued a couple years ago.
EF 300mm f/4L IS USM... 2nd or 3rd lens w/IS, and the only one of these still in production.
EF 100-400 L IS USM... first version with push/pull zoom, discontinued some years ago.
EF 24-105L IS USM... first version, discontinued, superseded by "II" & cheaper "STM" versions.

It was Canon USA's own tech guru Chuck Westfall who told me about the first four lenses. Following a lot of reports of "issues" by users, I added the 24-105L to the list.

The "problem" is that when these lenses are fully locked down on a tripod or being used in any situation where there is absolutely no movement for IS to correct, the IS system goes into sort of a feedback loop where it actually causes movement that results in "shake blue" in images. If there is any movement at all... even internal camera vibrations from mirror slap or a breeze moving the gear slightly, there usually won't be a problem and IS can be helpful. And, even if you forget and leave it on the worst that can happen is you'll see IS causing rather rapid "jumping" in the viewfinder that can make it hard to compose an image. It will only cause image problems if you go ahead and take shots while that's happening. (Don't confuse this movement with a slower "image drift" that's commonly seen with IS in lenses. That drift doesn't affect still photos.) If this happens, you will see it and can then turn off IS.... no harm done, except maybe a ruined shot.

All the other Canon lenses with IS will self-detect when there's no movement to correct and automatically turn IS off themselves.

However, all of Canon's user manuals for lenses with IS recomment you to turn it off when using a tripod. When I discussed this with Westfall he told me the real reason for this with most of the lenses was to save a little battery power. I noted it couldn't be much, because I saw very little difference in the number of shots I got from a battery when using two identical cameras, one fitted with an IS lens like a 70-200mm and the other fitted with a non-IS lens like a 24-70mm. Chuck agreed it was minimal power savings, at best. In fact, if you think about it, when the lens is turning IS off automatically it's accomplishing exactly the same savings as if you'd manually turned off IS. So we thought it was probably just an abundance of caution that Canon included that recommendation with all IS lenses, even the more modern type. (Think of the "lawyer labels" on things.... Like a thermos I bought that said "not for hot liquids", which is the purpose of a thermos! Thanks to their warning label, if I injure myself, I can't sue them. They can just say "Hey, we warned you not to do that"!)

Another time you might want to turn off IS is if shooting very carefully composed shots, where the "image drift" I noted above might be a problem. This also could be an issue if shooting video with the gear on a tripod (but almost certainly not if shooting handheld video).

I use a number of IS lenses.... eight or nine of them. I almost never turn it off. I even have two of the lenses listed above... 28-135mm and 300mm f/4L... but those aren't lenses I tend to use on a tripod anyway. I do sometimes put the 300mm on a monopod or use it on a tripod with a "loose" gimbal head (allowing both tilt and panning movements), and there is no need to turn IS off in those instances.

Some Canon lenses have "Mode 1" for standard image stabilization (working both vertically and horizontally) and "Mode 2" for panning where the stabilization is only applied to the vertical axis, so that the system isn't working against deliberate background motion blur effects (and, yes, the system detects how the camera is oriented and only applies the stabilization to the vertical axis, regardless).

Some of the more recent Canon IS lenses don't have those modes, but will detect panning and automatically switch to a Mode 2 form of stabilization.

Some of the more recent Canon IS lenses now also have a "Mode 3", which functions the same as Mode 1, except it's "Instant IS" that's only applied during the actual exposure. In other words, IS isn't running prior to taking the shot, the way Mode 1 and Mode 2 do. Some people prefer this, especially when shooting with really long telephotos that are difficult to keep "on target". Personally I like that Mode 1 and Mode 2 also stabilize what I'm seeing in the viewfinder. I often find that helpful, not a hindrance in any way. The fact that Mode 3 on my Canon EF 100-400mm "II" (and some other lenses) can activate and do its job in the tiny fraction of a second of exposure does suggest that the IS system is extremely fast, which is certainly a good thing!

Another thing I've heard is that some in-lens (optical) image stabilization systems might slow autofocus performance. There seems to be some evidence for this in Nikkor lenses with VR and many users turn it off when they can for that reason. I have no experience with that, so am just passing along what a lot of Nikon shooters say about VR lenses. And, I have no way to prove it, but I always felt Canon IS actually helps autofocus perform better... that the camera found the stabilized scene easier to detect and focus upon.

I also have no experience with Sony OSS, Sigma OS, Tamron VC or with using Canon IS lenses on cameras that also have in-camera stabilization ("IBIS", like many Sony do). So take all the above with a grain of salt because other than where I noted, it's only applicable to Canon IS. The various manufacturers' systems may all do something similar, but are also patented and bound to be a bit different from one another. I've heard, but again don't know from personal experience, that the Sigma OS performance is very similar to Canon IS. I am pretty sure Sigma and Tamron both have means of "tweaking" how their lenses' stabilization functions, by accessing the lenses' firmware. AFAIK, there's no way to do that with Canon IS lenses (though some recent models have means of updating the firmware to newer versions).