Lens question - please explain

I was told that the Olympus IBIS turns off during video, and that therefore any Olympus lens used on, for example, an EPL1 or EPL2 for video would be completely unstabilized and require a tripod for decent footage. Therefore, to video on an Oly body and get stabilized video footage with no tripod the only solution is to use a panasonic m4/3 lens with the in-lens stabilization. Is this true or was the salesperson trying to put one over on me?

Second, I have asked this question before but did not get a reply.... What happens when you use the Panasonic kit lens 14-42 (it does not have the on/off switch for the stabilization on the lens - it is set in the camera body supposedly) on an Oly body? Do you have any choice in which stabilization system the Oly would use or would it just revert to the Oly IBIS since the lens has no on/off switch?

Thanks in advance.

IBIS works fine in video mode on the PEN cameras and you don't need a u43 or 43 lens to have that functionality.

If the Panny lens doesn't have a switch, it doesn't have stabalization, therefore, you only have the IBIS available to you. This, btw, is why I went with Olympus instead of Panasonic -- more stabalization options.

Good that you asked the question here because you got false info elsewhere

spritley said:

I was told that the Olympus IBIS turns off during video, and that therefore any Olympus lens used on, for example, an EPL1 or EPL2 for video would be completely unstabilized and require a tripod for decent footage. Therefore, to video on an Oly body and get stabilized video footage with no tripod the only solution is to use a panasonic m4/3 lens with the in-lens stabilization. Is this true or was the salesperson trying to put one over on me?

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The physical IBIS does turn off during video, but they substitute in a digital form of IS by making the capture area smaller than the actual sensor and "shifting" the capture area according to how much you move/shake. You can see the effect by turning IS on/off in video mode and observing the image on the LCD. When it's on it looks like you're zoomed in more.

spritley said:

Second, I have asked this question before but did not get a reply.... What happens when you use the Panasonic kit lens 14-42 (it does not have the on/off switch for the stabilization on the lens - it is set in the camera body supposedly) on an Oly body? Do you have any choice in which stabilization system the Oly would use or would it just revert to the Oly IBIS since the lens has no on/off switch?

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Good question that I don't have experience with. Hopefully somebody will be here soon to answer that.

Thanks! The first part I now understand. The second I am still having trouble with...

The Pany 14/42 kit lens definitely has stabilization in the lens, it is just that there is no switch to turn it on or off mounted on the lens. From what I read, the only way to turn the in lens stabilization on or off for that particular lens is through the Pany menu in the camera.

I guess what I am asking is if the Oly menu in the Oly cameras have a setting that would allow you to turn on the in lens stabilization when using that lens on an Oly body, or if the Oly camera can only 'read' lenses that have the on/off switch for the stabilization mounted on the lens itself.

In other words, it uses digital stabilization which is less effective than optical stabilization and degrades image quality.

spritley said:

I was told that the Olympus IBIS turns off during video, and that therefore any Olympus lens used on, for example, an EPL1 or EPL2 for video would be completely unstabilized and require a tripod for decent footage.

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Yes, IBIS turns off as the mechanical noise from the sensor shift mechanism would drown out any sound recording, also it may overheat for being on for long periods. Take a 1 second stills shot with IBIS on and hear what I mean.

Video uses pixel shifting stabilisation if the stabilisation is turned on. Better than nothing, but not as good as Panasonic OIS (or is it "Mega OIS" now?) lens shift stabilisation.

spritley said:

Therefore, to video on an Oly body and get stabilized video footage with no tripod the only solution is to use a panasonic m4/3 lens with the in-lens stabilization. Is this true or was the salesperson trying to put one over on me?

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The pixel shifting stabilisation does work to some degree, but using a Panasonic lens with OIS switch is better. Salesbody was 90% correct.

Hand-held trembly video is better than nothing at all and I suspect there may be video edit software out there that may remove shakies from videos anyway, does any know for sure on that? I'm not a particularly videoy person.

Edit.... later Googled and first found this http://www.goodervideo.com/store/index.html but there's many hits for shake in video fixes.

spritley said:

Second, I have asked this question before but did not get a reply.... What happens when you use the Panasonic kit lens 14-42 (it does not have the on/off switch for the stabilization on the lens - it is set in the camera body supposedly) on an Oly body? Do you have any choice in which stabilization system the Oly would use or would it just revert to the Oly IBIS since the lens has no on/off switch?

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If a Panasonic lens has no OIS switch on it then that lens defaults to no OIS operation when on an Olympus body, so 'tis useless to buy the current switch-less Panasonic 14-42mm lens for video, you need to find the 14-45mm Panasonic lens with OIS switch for video, if video is that important. Of course any Panasonic lens with OIS switch can be used for video if you want OIS type of stabilisation.

The Oly book recommends to turn off IBIS when using OIS as the two are said to interact and cause problems. Others say they have shot with both turned on and it works fine. Experiments are called for.....

I'm on holidays next week in Japan and hope to buy the 14-45mm switchable OIS lens (cheaper in Japan than Australia) to sort out this video and stabilisation information on my own, instead of relying on wildly varying accuracy in posts I see in the forum.

Regards............... Guy
E-PL1 info.... http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/olyepl1/01-epl1-menu.html

MNE said:

If the Panny lens doesn't have a switch, it doesn't have stabalization, therefore, you only have the IBIS available to you.

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The lens is designated "OIS." The transition from the switch on the barrel to menu to turn on OIS was done in G2/G10, at the same time the lens was released. Whether the OIS can be turned on for an Olympus camera I don't know.

Vlad

Yes, After Effects can stabilize video and I'm sure that there are others. Of course you loose resolution at the edges depending upon how much movement there is.

I don't have that lens, but I think there is no way to turn on MOIS via a Olympus Menu command.
--
Antonio

http://ferrer.smugmug.com/

So, you are sayiing that Olympus IBIS is too noisy for movies but Panasonic OIS is quiet? I don't have a Panasonic lens which is why I ask.

To my knowledge only Sony a55 uses IBIS during video and it's limited to 30min due to overheating. I used to have Panny 14-45mm with OIS switch and it worked well with Oly for video. Otherwise you're better off using wide angle lenses for video (e.g. Panny 14mm) cause they're much less prone to camera shake than the zoom ones.
--
E-PL2; 20mm f1.7, 14mm f2.5, 14-150mm f4-5.6, ZD 50mm f2

MNE said:

So, you are sayiing that Olympus IBIS is too noisy for movies...

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It really is noisy, just take a 1 second stills exposure to hear it in action.

MNE said:

but Panasonic OIS is quiet? I don't have a Panasonic lens which is why I ask.

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Ditto no Panasonic lens as yet but the OIS is just a small lens jiggling about, evidently way less noise than the whole sensor chip jumping all over the place.

By the way, the more I experiment with E-PL1 IBIS the more I realise that it should not be used for anything other than really long shutter timing when shake may be evident hand-held. At "normal" shutter speeds the IBIS makes the image slightly blurry.

That explains the different opinions people have about various lenses, some can hold a camera steady and that seems to make IBIS blur worse. People with shaky hands or with slow shutter speeds do need the IBIS and it seems to work OK then.

Nobody should compare or test lenses unless all stabilisation is off and a heavy tripod is used, otherwise the comparison is between hand-holding ability and not between lenses.

Regards............ Guy

It seems as if the E-P3 offers IBIS during video, I think!

Think again.

Mk7 said:

It seems as if the E-P3 offers IBIS during video, I think!

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Highly unlikely as the mechanical noise of that IBIS at it jumps all over the place is quite high. Take a one second stills shot and listen to it crunch away.

Usually pixel fiddling is used, in some places they say something like "the image size is slightly reduced when stabilisation is used" that means it de-shakes by wobbling the image around inside the frame by pixel shifting (in the image processing chip) so the frame size needs to be reduced a bit.

Try any video edit software that does stabilisation and that is exactly how it operates, the bigger the shake you want reduced, the smaller the resulting frame becomes, even though the result is stretched back to the original pixel count, but at a slight loss in resolution.

Regards......... Guy

Yeah, you're right.
I hope they figure it out, though. Maybe Sony has a patent?