Image Stabilization experiment just for fun

Larry Rexley wrote:

Interesting experiment, with good controls. Looks like 6 stops improvement is the magic number for your setup. if you had to go lower, possibly shooting 5 or more images and then choosing the sharpest one, you could get a stop or two more.

For me IBIS is kind of a moot point for still images, as I shoot moving trains in low light and the shutter speeds even with wide angle lenses for relatively slow-moving freights still have to be around 1/160 - 1/200 second. For me fast, sharp f1.4 primes on my APS-C camera are the only solution, coupled with higher ISOs and DxO Deep prime - lens IS and IBIS won't help me. IBIS would be helpful for video in stabilizing the composition of the image without a gimbal.

Agreed, image stabilization has limitations for moving subjects (not that it's completely useless).  For example, I shoot a lot of birds in flight and set my Sigma 150-600 lens to "OS" Mode 2, which corrects for vertical movement but does nothing for horizontal movement.  Since I pan horizontally (usually), I don't want the stabilization to try and correct for my panning.  My little experiment is pretty much meaningless for anything but still subjects.  For this experiment, 6 stops was indeed the sweet spot, but I feel like I could have gotten ok results at 7 stops with a little more practice at my camera holding technique.  Even at 8 stops, I got acceptable results by using Topaz AI sharpen.