Steady Now
Image Stabilization by Canon
By Tobias Peciva
25 February 2008
After agonizing for months, I finally picked up a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8l is usm. It's big, heavy, expensive and highly conspicuous, but it is easily my favorite piece of photographic equipment. Why? Well, it's fast, sharp and built like a tank. But more importantly, it sports that most delightful of imaging technologies: Image stabilization.
Image stabilization amazes me. It constantly does its thing, allowing you to shoot handheld in nigh-on impossible lighting conditions, with absolutely no fuzz or fanfare. It allows you to go for depth of field when normally you would crank up the shutter speed. It helps keep your images sharp when you're buffeted by the wind. It even compensates for shutter vibrations when your camera is mounted on a tripod. And all the while, you would almost not know it was there, if it wasn't for the quiet, reassuring purr while it's engaged.
But the best thing about image stabilization has nothing to do with any of that. In fact, I do almost all my shooting outdoors, in daylight, with fast shutter speeds. What really gets me excited about IS - and the reason I developed a real emotional attachment with it - is the sheer serenity of looking through the viewfinder with an image stabilized lens.
Handhold any long lens without stabilization, and you'll probably find that the erratic camera shake detracts hugely from the experience of finding and framing your shot. But activate stabilization, and the scene snaps into clear, steady focus. This came as a total surprise to me, and it's an almost surreal experience at first. But ultimately, it gives you a much more direct connection with your subject: It lets you forget all the technology between you and it, and concentrate entirely on capturing what you see.
Canon have busily been adding image stabilization to lenses across the entire spectrum, from consumer zooms to the longest and most expensive telephotos. And as for me, I can't see myself buying another lens without it.
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