Bill Munny wrote:
... Can anyone tell me what will happen if I do not turn it off VR while using the tripod? ...
Massive earthquakes will cause tsunamis that will inundate coastal cities. Global warming will kill off the last remaining polar bears, melting the ice caps at both poles and causing the seas to rise 6 or 8 feet, and rain forests will burn. The super volcano of Yellowstone Park will erupt. A black hole will appear and start consuming the solar system.... And Hillary Clinton will be elected president.
"The horror! The horror!" (Kurtz' final line in "Apocalypse Now" or Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".)
But seriously...
Some Nikon users think VR slows down AF performance a little and there's some evidence to support that (p.s. I shoot with Canon gear and think their IS does just the opposite... helps AF perform better).
Leaving it on also will likely consume a little more of the camera's battery power. (I see virtually no difference with my Canon IS on or off.)
Some stabilization systems go into sort of a feedback loop when there's absolutely no movement for them to correct, such as when solidly locked down on a tripod. (There's a short list of Canon lenses where this can occur.... most Canon lenses do not because they auto detect lack of movement and turn off IS themselves... But I don't know if Nikon VR works the same way).
When those lenses go into that feedback loop, the stabilization actually causes shake blur in images, rather than correcting for it.
In most cases, when that occurs you can see it happening in the viewfinder, reminding you if you forget to turn off stabilization. AFAIK, when this occurs no harm will be done to camera or lens... although you might end up with some blurred images.
Likely Nikon VR, Sony OSS, Canon IS, Sigma OS, and Tamron VC "in-lens" stabilization systems all work a little differently. They are each patented by their respective manufacturers, so must be slightly different technology and implementations. So, info about one of the systems cannot be assumed to be correct for any of the others, even though the end result is pretty much the same. So, take everything I've written above with a grain of salt.
Fotoartist wrote:
Why can't the camera manufacturers be upfront in simple bold language with what their products do and don't do...?
Probably because they don't really know. Lots of products are created, sent to market and sold, and in wide use before problems are identified and resolved or unintended consequences are realized.