Olymguy
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Regular Member
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Posts: 214
Is using lens optical stabilizer (OS) on a stable tripod a good idea?!
Jan 2, 2017
2
As far as I understand the optical image stabilization (OS) is helping to produce a fairly clear and vibration-free image when hand holding the camera. I would wanted to do a test on a tripod to see if the claim still holds or it is better to switch the OS off when the system is mounted on a tripod. The rationale was that I thought it maybe useful for landscape photography when there is a tripod setup. I have done the test on a Nikon D7200 with a SIGMA AF 18-200 f/3,5-6,3 DC Macro OS HSM C lens. Having to say that someone else might have done this test as well, but I am not aware of till this moment.
So I made a simple test on a series of OS on/off scenarios as below:
1- Kept the mirror up (Mup) on and took pictures when having the OS off and on.
2- Gave the camera a 10 seconds self-timer before taking the shot, so it would be enough to cancel out any vibration made by any chance.
When there is no "external" vibration, it seems that the OS system is still active and awake seeking for any movements (probably XYZ) within its dynamic sensitivity range to cancel out the vibration and thus producing a blurry image. To my view it looks that the OS system stabilizes against itself when on idle (no movements in the body) as I have seen the picture on the live view drifting a bit, and that must be why it gets some blurry images despite no shake in the system.
I am presenting here the cropped parts of the full shots and the full shot; they were saved as JPEG files. Every picture is divided to four cropped.
What I concluded is that when using the camera on a tripod for landscape shooting, it appears to be switching the OS off with the mirror held in up position produces the cleanest image. I would appreciate your feedback.
Table 1- Design of experiment
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Figure 1 - Full shot of the images taken. Set up is based on Table 1.
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Figure 2 - Top right pictures (Mup, OS off) is showing cleaner image.
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Figure 3 - Blown out image from Figure 2.
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Figure 4 - When os is "ON" (pictures on the left , the tip of the measurement bars are not flat, or in other words OS appears to to be "actively correcting against no vibrations"! magnification on figure 5
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Figure 5 - Blown up image of figure 4; note the bevelled right inclined tip of the bars on the left images when the OS was kept "ON" comparing to the bars on the right two images which looks nice and "flat shaped", especially the one on top right again.
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Figure 6 - Another piece of image from the main image on figure 1.
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Figure 7 - Least color dispersion (bleeding) on the top right.
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Figure 8 - Note the "plus" sign and line geometrical distinctions
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Figure 9 - Printing unevenness (ink patched) are more visible on the top right image (Mup , OS off).
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Figure 10
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Figure 11 - I put the blame here on the lens quality on its corners, but it stills shows OS is working against image quality on a tripod setup.
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Figure 12 - Experiment setup