Which shake reduction is better? The ones built onto the lens or in the camera body?

Question

Referring to dSLRs :-P

Answer 1

Personally, I would rather the technology be present within the lens, and not the camera body. My sentiment, as with one of the other answers, is that vibration reduction is better suited to the lens, counteracting vibration by adjusting the individual lens groups, which makes more sense optically than the image sensor being adjusted in the camera body, regardless of power drain. Anything having to do with moving or vibrating the image sensor just spells trouble to me because if it breaks, your camera is dead. In the lens, if it breaks, at least you can use another lens. Besides, there are only a couple of camera manufacturers that have in body shake reduction, and from what I've read, you're better off with a nikon and a VR lens, no matter how much more expensive the lenses are. You get what you pay for.

Answer 2

There are definitely a number of advantages to have the stabilizer built into the camera. Among them is the ability to then apply it to all lenses whether they're new or very old. It raises the cost of the camera of course but you get that money back immediately when you buy one or two lenses since you don't have to keep paying for that feature with each lens.

But there is also a major disadvantage. The problem with this kind of technology is that it's best applied at a very specific point within the light path. Having it in the light path it is easier to accurately measure the dynamics of a given shake and it is easier and faster to correct those dynamics because only small motions of the correcting element are needed.

Having it in the camera applies the correction at the end of the light path. At this location it is not as easy to accurately determine the dynamics of the shake and it requires a far more intense correction that takes more time and energy and even then doesn't always succeed in correcting it well. In addition, the characteristics of the shake vary for each lens design.

As a result it works reasonably well for a very few lenses and for minor shakes and not for all. Making the adjustment at that point can actually result in images that are not nearly as sharp as they should be. The maker gets around that by limiting the guarantee, usually offering only a two stop protection whereas many of the lens based stabilizers offer a four stop protection.

The other problem is that when the stabilizer develops a problem you lose the whole camera to get it fixed whereas with a lens you only lose that lens. And, it is more expensive to replace a sensor and stabilizer in the camera that has shaken itself to death, than to simply replace a stabilizer in a lens.

Building the technology into the lens allows the designers to place it exactly where it's needed, between lens groups. Having it further from the camera the nature of the motion is easier to detect accurately and then to correct more accurately. The result of that is sharp crisp pictures every time.

But of course there are disadvantages to this too. Lenses are then more expensive to buy and they tend to be bigger (in diameter mostly) and heavier too. What you might save in the cost of the camera you pay for over and over again every time you buy a lens.

Which is better? It depends on what's important to you.

My attitude is that I'm taking pictures to capture moments as perfectly as possible and I'm doing that in an imperfect world where shooting conditions are often terrible and I don't happen to have a tripod handy at that moment. So for me I place a lot of importance on overall image quality and I don't worry too much about the cost of achieving that. Hence I obviously would say it's better in the lens.

On the other hand if you don't mind less than perfect images and perhaps two stops of protection (which is better than nothing) instead of four and you're cost conscious, clearly it would be better to have it in the camera.

I should add that this debate used to rage about auto focus too. Similar advantages and disadvantages were put forward for having the motor in the lens or in the camera. Interestingly, all manufacturers of SLRs eventually started to build the motor into the lens instead of into the camera. This provided much faster more responsive focus and a lot more accurate focus as well. I wonder if the same thing will eventually happen with the image stabilizer?

I hope this helps a little.

Answer 3

Any stabilization is better then none.... having said that I love it in the body. Besides the fact that that SR works with every lens (2-4 stops depending upon how steady you are to begin with) . It used a lot less battery power (only active when shutter curtain is actually open). VR and IS lenses can be set to tun active when shutter button is depressed 1/2 way and stay active for a few seconds afterwards. It takes a lot more energy to keep a large lense element stabilized for a feew seconds then a APS-C sensor for a fraction of a second. There is only a negligable drain on the battery (less then 3%) where in the les I've seen people loos 10-20% battery life with VR/IS active in the lens.

Answer 4

I second the answer by asdfhjkl; .

Placing Image Stabilization or Anti-Shake in the lens makes the lens heavier and more expensive in my opinion. To me it just makes more sense to have it in the camera body.

It seems to me that IS or A-S in the body should work with manual focus lenses such as the older PENTAX K-mount film camera lenses that can be used on the newest PENTAX K100D and K10D DSLR's.

I could be wrong but it wouldn't be the first time LOL!

Answer 5

Defneltly the ones built in