There are tons of features that camera manufacturers push on their consumers every day as a differentiating piece of their marketing puzzle.  As camera consumers we have to navigate through this jungle of jargon armed with only a few nuggets of knowledge.

We’ll arm you as often as we can with the necessary knowledge to navigate through your next camera purchase.

Stabilizers

Make no mistake.  Your digital camera has one, or the lenses do at least.  This is true whether you have a point and shoot or a DSLR.  So what exactly is a stabilizer and do we actually have to pay attention to that section of the marketing for your money?

Image stabilization is one of the most important features to look at in your next digital camera purchase.  Like almost every other realm of camera manufacturing madness it has different names from different families.  You may see it as; image stabilization, anti-shake, anti-blur, or vibration reduction.

Image stabilization is most useful in 3 common situations:

• Low light shooting situations really benefit from image stabilization.  In lower light situations your camera has to use a slower shutter speed leaving your images open to camera shake.  Stabilization aims to reduce this problem.
• Zooming your lens all the way out also introduces an increased chance of camera shake.  The longer your lens is zoomed out the more amplified the blurring can become.
• The loss of viewfinders on most of today’s point and shoots (and even some DSLR type cameras) means you’re most likely to hold the camera further from your body to see the LCD on the back of the camera.  This “new photographer” stance introduces much more camera shake than holding the camera at your eye and tight against your face.  The camera manufacturers absolutely owe it to their customers to provide a solution for this new “convenience” and they attempt to by providing better image stabilization every year.

Because of these reasons the manufacturers and the photographers have made this feature a “hot ticket”.

There are two basic types of image stabilization methods available.  Real mechanical image stabilization and computer generated image stabilization.  I like one and not the other.

The real mechanical kinds work very very well.  They use a “floating” optical element—often connected to a fast spinning gyroscope or they make the CCD move so that it compensates for the camera movement .  In DSLRs it can be built into the camera bodies or built into the lenses.

The computer generated image stabilization isn’t really a stabilizer in a traditional sense at all.  It’s a cheap ploy.  All it does is adjust your camera settings to try and compensate for the low light situation or added zoom by boosting your ISO or some other combination of settings.  I’m not a fan of this “technique” at all.

As always, do you research before you buy.  DPReveiw is always a good place to start.  Look for “real” anit-shake or image stabilization built mechanically into the camera or lens.

Did you look at stabilization as a feature on your last camera purchase and/or do you plan on looking at it on your next one?

Photograph One hour with my new camera by Mags_cat