Image Stabilizer always on: Normal on Mirrorless?

[pixal_ch]

This is from the EOS R Manual: "If the attached lens has an Image Stabilizer and you set the Image Stabilizer (IS) switch to <1>, the Image Stabilizer will operate at all
times even if you do not press the shutter button halfway. The Image
Stabilizer consumes battery power and may decrease the number
of possible shots depending on the shooting conditions."

So the Image Stabilizer will always be on as long as the camera is on.

This bothers me a lot:

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

(The "normal" behaviour in my opinion would be for it to be only on as long as you press the shutter button.)

 

[Beaverhelmet]

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

No. On Sony cameras, IBIS/IS only activates during shutter half press+exposure, or when focus aid is invoked. It is also active during video recording of course.

(Focus aid is a heavily zoomed in view in the viewfinder to simplify manual focus. Without IBIS/IS this view would be extremely shaky.)

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

No. On Sony cameras, IBIS/IS only activates during shutter half press+exposure, or when focus aid is invoked. It is also active during video recording of course.

(Focus aid is a heavily zoomed in view in the viewfinder to simplify manual focus. Without IBIS/IS this view would be extremely shaky.)

It is also good practice to wait a half second or so to let IBIS get going and do its job.

Also to turn it off when on a tripod.

Greg.

 

[nnowak]

This is from the EOS R Manual: "If the attached lens has an Image Stabilizer and you set the Image Stabilizer (IS) switch to <1>, the Image Stabilizer will operate at all
times even if you do not press the shutter button halfway. The Image
Stabilizer consumes battery power and may decrease the number
of possible shots depending on the shooting conditions."

So the Image Stabilizer will always be on as long as the camera is on.

This bothers me a lot:

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

(The "normal" behaviour in my opinion would be for it to be only on as long as you press the shutter button.)

This is only "normal" behavior on Canon mirrorless cameras. I have used three other mirrorless brands and all had traditional DSLR behavior for IS activation. The original Canon EOS M and subsequent M2 behaved just like Canon DSLRs. Starting with the M3, Canon changed the firmware and IS is always active, even if you are in image review or scrolling menus. This has been on an ongoing complaint in the M forum.

There is one other detail. Canon EF-M lenses use a different IS mechanism compared to EF and EF-S lenses. If you remove power from an EF or EF-S lens, the IS mechanism settles in a home position. With EF-M lenses, the IS mechanism will flop around if power is removed. Turning off the IS with an EF-M lens just tells the lens to hold the mechanism in the home position instead of correcting vibration and will still consume power. My guess is the new RF lenses are built the same as the EF-M lenses.

 

[herion]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

 

[nnowak]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

Hopefully, but I would not count on it. The aperture mechanism is also different on EF-M lenses. With an EF or EF-S lens, the aperture is wide open when power is removed. The EF-M lenses are the opposite and fully stop down when power is removed.

I don't know why Canon has decided to keep IS active on mirrorless bodies or why the EF-M lenses are built differently than EF lenses. I would not be surprised if the RF lenses behaved like EF-M lenses.

 

[MatsP]

This is from the EOS R Manual: "If the attached lens has an Image Stabilizer and you set the Image Stabilizer (IS) switch to <1>, the Image Stabilizer will operate at all
times even if you do not press the shutter button halfway. The Image
Stabilizer consumes battery power and may decrease the number
of possible shots depending on the shooting conditions."

So the Image Stabilizer will always be on as long as the camera is on.

This bothers me a lot:

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

(The "normal" behaviour in my opinion would be for it to be only on as long as you press the shutter button.)

I have experience from Olympus cameras. They have IBIS, like most ML cameras, but unlike the R. The E-M5 had at first IBIS operating as soon as the camera was on, causing an annoying sound which users complained about. After a firmware upgrade this was changed and IBIS operated only after the shutter was half-pressed down. The more pro-oriented E-M1 acted like that from start.

 

[Mika Y.]

This is from the EOS R Manual: "If the attached lens has an Image Stabilizer and you set the Image Stabilizer (IS) switch to <1>, the Image Stabilizer will operate at all
times even if you do not press the shutter button halfway. The Image
Stabilizer consumes battery power and may decrease the number
of possible shots depending on the shooting conditions."

So the Image Stabilizer will always be on as long as the camera is on.

This bothers me a lot:

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

(The "normal" behaviour in my opinion would be for it to be only on as long as you press the shutter button.)

This is only "normal" behavior on Canon mirrorless cameras. I have used three other mirrorless brands and all had traditional DSLR behavior for IS activation. The original Canon EOS M and subsequent M2 behaved just like Canon DSLRs. Starting with the M3, Canon changed the firmware and IS is always active, even if you are in image review or scrolling menus. This has been on an ongoing complaint in the M forum.

There is one other detail. Canon EF-M lenses use a different IS mechanism compared to EF and EF-S lenses. If you remove power from an EF or EF-S lens, the IS mechanism settles in a home position. With EF-M lenses, the IS mechanism will flop around if power is removed. Turning off the IS with an EF-M lens just tells the lens to hold the mechanism in the home position instead of correcting vibration and will still consume power. My guess is the new RF lenses are built the same as the EF-M lenses.

Wow, this sounds like a really bizarre design decision from the end user's point of view. The idea of either having the IS running all the time unnecessarily or toggling the IS switch on a lens back and forth does not exactly sound appealing. Hopefully there's either some kind of workaround for this or future products / firmware updates address it in some way.

 

[thunder storm]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

That is what i do, just use the switch on the lens. This saves me one function to assign to a camera button.

 

[nnowak]

This is from the EOS R Manual: "If the attached lens has an Image Stabilizer and you set the Image Stabilizer (IS) switch to <1>, the Image Stabilizer will operate at all
times even if you do not press the shutter button halfway. The Image
Stabilizer consumes battery power and may decrease the number
of possible shots depending on the shooting conditions."

So the Image Stabilizer will always be on as long as the camera is on.

This bothers me a lot:

1. It uses power from the camera's battery

2. It wears the stabilizer mechanism of the lens

3. But what bothers me most: the noise. My 100mm Macro lens, which I intend to use with the EOS R, has a very noisy IS. And I absolutely need IS for my butterfly photography.

Is this behaviour normal on mirrorless cameras?

(The "normal" behaviour in my opinion would be for it to be only on as long as you press the shutter button.)

This is only "normal" behavior on Canon mirrorless cameras. I have used three other mirrorless brands and all had traditional DSLR behavior for IS activation. The original Canon EOS M and subsequent M2 behaved just like Canon DSLRs. Starting with the M3, Canon changed the firmware and IS is always active, even if you are in image review or scrolling menus. This has been on an ongoing complaint in the M forum.

There is one other detail. Canon EF-M lenses use a different IS mechanism compared to EF and EF-S lenses. If you remove power from an EF or EF-S lens, the IS mechanism settles in a home position. With EF-M lenses, the IS mechanism will flop around if power is removed. Turning off the IS with an EF-M lens just tells the lens to hold the mechanism in the home position instead of correcting vibration and will still consume power. My guess is the new RF lenses are built the same as the EF-M lenses.

Wow, this sounds like a really bizarre design decision from the end user's point of view. The idea of either having the IS running all the time unnecessarily or toggling the IS switch on a lens back and forth does not exactly sound appealing. Hopefully there's either some kind of workaround for this or future products / firmware updates address it in some way.

Ever since the M3, M system users have been complaining to Canon formover 3 years. Not only has Canon not issued a firmware update for the M3, but they have released 5 more M system cameras, and now the R, that all behave the same way. Maybe if enough "pro's" scream loud enough, maybe Canon will start to pay attention.

 

[mvert]

In M50, if you disable ”Continuous AF” from shoot6 menu, IS is activated only when you focus. When this setting is enbled, camera tries to focus all the time it’s on and it will keep IS on. I would be suprised if R doesn’t have same possibility to turn this off.

 

[pixal_ch]

Ever since the M3, M system users have been complaining to Canon formover 3 years. Not only has Canon not issued a firmware update for the M3, but they have released 5 more M system cameras, and now the R, that all behave the same way. Maybe if enough "pro's" scream loud enough, maybe Canon will start to pay attention.

This is really bad.

Even my 6D Mark II does it when using Live View (while the 6D doesn't). But I mostly use Live View with the 6D2 on a tripod when I turn off IS on the lens anyway. So it wasn't really an issue. But with the R it would be like this all the time. I really can't buy this camera because of this. It may have its use case, but why can't we choose?

Does someone know how to give feedback (complain) to Canon in a way they would really listen? Under which circumstances would they acknowledge me as a Pro? I'm not really, but I take my photography very seriously. And I really don't want to switch to another brand because I love my 100mm Macro L so much.

 

[Glassfish]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

Hopefully, but I would not count on it. The aperture mechanism is also different on EF-M lenses. With an EF or EF-S lens, the aperture is wide open when power is removed. The EF-M lenses are the opposite and fully stop down when power is removed.

I think there is a second switch in addition to MF - AF switch on RF 24-105 L IS. That could be the IS switch.

I don't know why Canon has decided to keep IS active on mirrorless bodies or why the EF-M lenses are built differently than EF lenses. I would not be surprised if the RF lenses behaved like EF-M lenses.

This is odd indeed. It is against the common sense. There might be some some technical behind this for Canon to have a design that spends extra battery power when it does not seem to be needing it.

 

[Glassfish]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

That is what i do, just use the switch on the lens. This saves me one function to assign to a camera button.

That incurs extra steps during the operation - switch it on to take pictures and off when you stop shooting (even for a little while). I am not sure I like to adjust to that habit.

 

[nnowak]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

Hopefully, but I would not count on it. The aperture mechanism is also different on EF-M lenses. With an EF or EF-S lens, the aperture is wide open when power is removed. The EF-M lenses are the opposite and fully stop down when power is removed.

I think there is a second switch in addition to MF - AF switch on RF 24-105 L IS. That could be the IS switch.

Yes, there does appear to be an IS switch. Using the switch to manually turn off IS will be the only way to keep the IS from running constantly.

I don't know why Canon has decided to keep IS active on mirrorless bodies or why the EF-M lenses are built differently than EF lenses. I would not be surprised if the RF lenses behaved like EF-M lenses.

This is odd indeed. It is against the common sense. There might be some some technical behind this for Canon to have a design that spends extra battery power when it does not seem to be needing it.

The original M and M2 used a code base that was clearly ported from the T4i and T5i DSLRs. With the M3, Canon appeared to have switched to a Powershot code base. The initial assumption in the M forum was that the M3 behavior was due to sloppy programming (the M3 has plenty of other bugs). Since this behavior has continued with all subsequent Canon mirrorless cameras, it appears to be intentional.

My only guess is that it is still a case of lazy programming. The EF-M lenses require continuous power to hold the IS mechanism in the home position when switched OFF or for active IS when switched ON. In both cases, the code base is sending power to the IS mechanism. The original M cameras likely polled the attached lens to determine if it was EF-M vs EF. The newer cameras likely skip this polling step and just treat all lenses the same.

 

[thunder storm]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

That is what i do, just use the switch on the lens. This saves me one function to assign to a camera button.

That incurs extra steps during the operation - switch it on to take pictures and off when you stop shooting (even for a little while). I am not sure I like to adjust to that habit.

With short shutterspeeds you don't need it anyway.

IS needs half to one second anyway to start up.

It is not a problem to leave it on one minute or so. I turn it off when i find myself not taking pictures for a certain time.

You can also turn off the back screen as this makes the camera stop focusing in continues AF. This is a good habit anyway. I think it makes IS stop working too, but i am not 100% sure. You can also let the camera automatic turn off the back screen, so that might be a solution for IS too? Hmmmmm, i should investigate this.

 

[Glassfish]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

Hopefully, but I would not count on it. The aperture mechanism is also different on EF-M lenses. With an EF or EF-S lens, the aperture is wide open when power is removed. The EF-M lenses are the opposite and fully stop down when power is removed.

I think there is a second switch in addition to MF - AF switch on RF 24-105 L IS. That could be the IS switch.

Yes, there does appear to be an IS switch. Using the switch to manually turn off IS will be the only way to keep the IS from running constantly.

I don't know why Canon has decided to keep IS active on mirrorless bodies or why the EF-M lenses are built differently than EF lenses. I would not be surprised if the RF lenses behaved like EF-M lenses.

This is odd indeed. It is against the common sense. There might be some some technical behind this for Canon to have a design that spends extra battery power when it does not seem to be needing it.

The original M and M2 used a code base that was clearly ported from the T4i and T5i DSLRs. With the M3, Canon appeared to have switched to a Powershot code base. The initial assumption in the M forum was that the M3 behavior was due to sloppy programming (the M3 has plenty of other bugs). Since this behavior has continued with all subsequent Canon mirrorless cameras, it appears to be intentional.

My only guess is that it is still a case of lazy programming. The EF-M lenses require continuous power to hold the IS mechanism in the home position when switched OFF or for active IS when switched ON. In both cases, the code base is sending power to the IS mechanism. The original M cameras likely polled the attached lens to determine if it was EF-M vs EF. The newer cameras likely skip this polling step and just treat all lenses the same.

I can see if this stays within EOS M line of lens but carrying the same code base to R seems too intentional. Yes, it could be laziness or it works don't fix it and perhaps they were under pressure to deliver the new system in time.

Could it be there isn't enough time to stabilize the lens well just a fraction of the seconds between the AF lock to fully pressed shutter button? It would be nice for Canon to make this configurable. I can't believe energizing stabilizing mechanism at all time isn't power inexpensive (unless Canon has achieved something amazing).

 

[Glassfish]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

That is what i do, just use the switch on the lens. This saves me one function to assign to a camera button.

That incurs extra steps during the operation - switch it on to take pictures and off when you stop shooting (even for a little while). I am not sure I like to adjust to that habit.

With short shutterspeeds you don't need it anyway.

IS needs half to one second anyway to start up.

It is not a problem to leave it on one minute or so. I turn it off when i find myself not taking pictures for a certain time.

I think it depends on what your shooting habit is or what situation you are in. Walking around and spotting things to take picture every five or ten minutes may be ok. If you switch the camera on and keep it on looking for pictures all the time then that could take more power.

You can also turn off the back screen as this makes the camera stop focusing in continues AF. This is a good habit anyway. I think it makes IS stop working too, but i am not 100% sure. You can also let the camera automatic turn off the back screen, so that might be a solution for IS too? Hmmmmm, i should investigate this.

The R has EVF and the back LCD. Are you saying this behavior only happens with the back LCD on?

 

[Glassfish]

In M50, if you disable ”Continuous AF” from shoot6 menu, IS is activated only when you focus. When this setting is enbled, camera tries to focus all the time it’s on and it will keep IS on. I would be suprised if R doesn’t have same possibility to turn this off.

Ah, that is good to know.

 

[thunder storm]

I tend to think if there is an IS switch physically on the R lens, it will behave the same way as the EF lenses with IS.

That is what i do, just use the switch on the lens. This saves me one function to assign to a camera button.

That incurs extra steps during the operation - switch it on to take pictures and off when you stop shooting (even for a little while). I am not sure I like to adjust to that habit.

With short shutterspeeds you don't need it anyway.

IS needs half to one second anyway to start up.

It is not a problem to leave it on one minute or so. I turn it off when i find myself not taking pictures for a certain time.

I think it depends on what your shooting habit is or what situation you are in. Walking around and spotting things to take picture every five or ten minutes may be ok. If you switch the camera on and keep it on looking for pictures all the time then that could take more power.

You can also turn off the back screen as this makes the camera stop focusing in continues AF. This is a good habit anyway. I think it makes IS stop working too, but i am not 100% sure. You can also let the camera automatic turn off the back screen, so that might be a solution for IS too? Hmmmmm, i should investigate this.

The R has EVF and the back LCD. Are you saying this behavior only happens with the back LCD on?

What i do know is continues AF stops when you switch off the back screen. But i did not investigate if IS switches off too in this case. Logically it should, but things can be not logical, so i have to try it.