April 15, 2006

Canon Lens Anti Shake


Click on the above photo for an amazing offer.

One of the high tech things about my camera is the option to get different featured lens.  The one I got with my camera featured both auto focus and anti shake which is also known as Image Stabilization (IS.)

I'm naturally skeptical about things that seem a little to good to be true.  Just what does anti-shake or IS do?  Here are two side by side pictures taken from my chair with ambient lighting only, pointing the camera towards my calendar located about 6 feet away from me.  Maximum telephoto (85mm) with an aperture setting of 5.6 and automatic exposure setting of about 1/5 second.  These were both handheld shots.  I didn't believe the first results so I did it again with the exact same results.

The following two photos demonstrate the advantage of IS.  I would also like to say that this is "stuff that works."
 


The above photos are cropped from a larger original photo.  The original photos were 3500 horizontal pixels and I cropped them down to ~1K horizontal pixels and I then resized both of photos to 600 horizontal pixels.  Here is a link to the full sized original uncropped anti-shake photo and a link to the one without (anti-shake turned off) if you are curious enough to scroll through the full sized photos.

The photo results are obvious and incredible.  When I take a shot and I can actually sense (feel)  the time the shutter is open, you get a sinking feeling of "Darn, this is not going to be a sharp picture."  At 1/5 of a second shutter speed, you can definitely sense the time it takes to open and close the shutter.  Yet, with anti-shake, it's like, "No sweat boss, click away."

Here is another example of Anti-Shake AKA Image Stabilization.  The picture of this dragon fly was taken on a bright day, under the shade of a tree. 

The picture on the left is the actual photo taken at maximum zoom from about 10 feet distance.  This was a handheld shot.  The picture on the right is cropped out of the picture on the left, to show the sharpness and detail of the picture.
 
I cropped the original photo on the left down to a horizontal dimension of approximately 1400 pixels (out of 3504.)  I then resized it for display on my web page, down to 600 pixels, as shown here (below.) 

The resulting crop and resizing gives the appearance and feeling that this photo was snapped within a micro-inch of the dragon fly's nose.  Not the case but it adds to the dramatic nature of the photo.  Also notice the overall detail and sharpness of this photo.
 
 
 I need to mention that I use to have a 200mm lens without IS.  It was a waste of time to use unless I dragged a 27 pound tripod along to mount my camera on.  Handheld shots with the 200mm lens always turned out fuzzy.  Thanks Canon for IS and being able to take quality long distance nature shots without a tripod.  Thanks eBay for giving me a venue for selling the 200mm lens without IS to somebody who is strong enough to drag a 27 pound tripod all over the wilderness.

How does Image Stabilization work?  Good question.  In a word, gyro.  A lot of IS lens actually incorporates a motor driven gyro.  You may remember from your grammar school science experiments, that gyros resist movement and that they do strange things like move 90 degrees away from where any pressure is applied to it's axis.  A simple toy top for instance, is an example of a gyro and how the gyro action stabilizes the top from toppling over as long as the top is spinning.  There are also other methods to stabilize an image, some electronic, some mechanical and incorporated in the camera.  Which ever you have, do an experiment like mine here, and evaluate how effective your anti-shake or image stabilization is for your photo taking experiences.


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