Airshow question

SR on or off?

Thanks.

on at least i always have it on for my birds in flight shots.

Roy

for moving objects it should be of as it can add blur,
still birds on, birds in flight off,

So that's unanimous then ....

Another vote for 'on'.

The SR doesn't add blur. It's using a slow shutter speed that does that - and with SR you may be inclined to use a slow shutter speed.

What SR does is compensate for camera shake. It can't freeze a moving object.

So there is no point in using SR for fast moving subjects, because the subject will dictate a fast shutter speed, thus making SR unnecessary. But if you have it on, it won't hurt. It won't "add blur".

I tend to leave it on all the time, unless using a tripod.

G

I second "Grumpy" George. If you think your shutter speed might get on the "low" side, leave it on. Especially with long lenses.

Indeed. I think this is another one of these unsubstantiated myths that are entirely without foundation, and would be almost impossible to test.

Imagine a camera that was moving at constant speed in a straight line. The accelerometers that measure shake (in order to tell the electronics to move the sensor in a direction countering the shake) would detect nothing at all.

Superimpose shake on that movement, and the sensors would detect it in the same way as they detect it in an otherwise stationary camera, and counter it in exactly the same way.

Of course, panning a camera by hand is only an approximation to such steady movement, and it's not impossible that if you accelerated the camera suddenly to follow the subject, and pressed the button at the same time, the camera might be attempting to correct for what it had suddenly detected as shake.

But even then, it would be impossible to know that that had happened, and in any case, the camera's SR wouldn't yet have stabilised - and as we know from Matt's experiments on that topic, unstabilised SR can be worse than no SR at all.

However, none of this comes even close to substantiating a claim that SR on a panning camera causes blur. My panning isn't bad, but I couldn't claim to be able to pan the camera steadily enough to be able to tell the difference between SR on and off with an already fast shutter speeed.

I say leave it on.

Same here.
I've tried on and off while panning an autosport race and I couldn't see a difference between the two but since we don't see a difference we might say that SR does not help with panning

In that case I thank you all and will put the one "OFF" vote down to a jealous Nikon user who's camera doesn't have SR.



Only kidding Scott


Of course if the pictures all turn out to be crap I will be right back here blaming the lot of you. (Except Scott).

It's not a great shot, but this...

[IMG]http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv67/alasdairdouglas/Slow.jpg[/IMG]

...was taken handheld with my old M200/4 and a 1/10th second shutter speed.
I have SR on almost all the time!

Al.

Actually with a bit of levels adjustment and a little sharpening, I think you might be surprised how good that can look, if you'll forgive my taking the liberty.

It was hovering, presumably, so isn't quite germane to this topic, but handheld, for 1/10s at that focal length, that is excellent.

Well tbh mine is always on, the only exception is when I use a tripod, then the it gets turned off.

ChrisA, consider yourself forgiven!
Nice work. My PP leaves a lot to be desired.

Another vote for on.