Is image stabilization worth the money?

cjphotojapan

Is the IS on the Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS worth the extra $475? Please let me know what you think.

ziggy53

It entirely depends on your application. Do remember that IS takes a little time to activate so for some sports applications it is not the panacea that a lot of people seem to think it is. A tripod is always more stable and a good tripod has a negligible settle time. A quality monopod is a very workable compromise.

If you use the lens properly, yes, it is easily worth the money for the IS feature.

cjphotojapan

Wow, thank you for responding so quickly.

I will be using this lens for basketball and volleyball in a gym with very bad lighting.

Are you saying the non IS may be a little faster than the IS version?

ziggy53

cjphotojapan wrote:

Wow, thank you for responding so quickly.

I will be using this lens for basketball and volleyball in a gym with very bad lighting.

Are you saying the non IS may be a little faster than the IS version?

Non-IS is more responsive in that it doesn't take any time to activate. If you use an IS lens you just need to anticipate a little before the shot and activate the IS before you need it. If the action is fast and furious the IS may not be much help at all. Use of IS can actually cause some blur in some instances.

Most benefit will come from a fast aperture and high ISO setting. We have some users recommending the use of indirect flash for basketball and volleyball so you might also consider that if appropriate.

cjphotojapan

Thank you! That helps.

pyry

IS helps you to handhold longer shots than you could without it - it will produce sharper results with short exposures as well when used properly, but this is a lesser effect. Since sports is more about freezing movement, it's not going to help a whole lot. Aperture is much more important.

However if you do any other work with it that does involve longish exposures, IS will literally save the world sometimes.

The responsiveness in a fast moving situation isn't a permanent sacrifice though, you can always flip a switch to turn IS off.

cmason

This being a 2.8 lens, it is often found in lower light situations. These very same situations might call for shutter speeds below 1/200, theoretically below the 'handheld speed' for a shot at 200mm. In fact, some consider the lowest handheld speed to be 1/320 @ 200mm (1.6x).

IS provides the ability to use lower handheld shutter speeds with this lens. So for indoor situations, this may be important, though speeds lower than 1/200 may not be all that good for sports, since the action may blur anyway.

bikingbets

Let me throw my .02 before you make a decision on your first indoor sports lens.

I got into DSLR photography almost a year ago, and bought a Canon 40D and the 70-200 IS for indoor basketball. It was okay, but produced soft images in the typical bad lighting of high school gyms. After a season of experimenting, I ended up with two primes (50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.8) as my favorites for indoor sports because of the wider apertures. I'd rather use the big one for outdoor sports where I can get better light...tremendous quality.

The shorter range of the primes is worth the tradeoff, in my opinion.

Your mileage may vary!
Betsy

jdryan3

bikingbets wrote:

Let me throw my .02 before you make a decision on your first indoor sports lens.

I got into DSLR photography almost a year ago, and bought a Canon 40D and the 70-200 IS for indoor basketball. It was okay, but produced soft images in the typical bad lighting of high school gyms. After a season of experimenting, I ended up with two primes (50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.8) as my favorites for indoor sports because of the wider apertures. I'd rather use the big one for outdoor sports where I can get better light...tremendous quality.

The shorter range of the primes is worth the tradeoff, in my opinion.

Along the same lines I like the 100 f/2, which gets you in at 160 on a crop body. It about $400, but sharp and quick. It was the first lens I dug out and put on my 50D. It actually was too close for what I was shooting but would be great for basketball or other low light situations where you need the reach.

cjphotojapan

How much difference between 2.0 and 2.8 in the amount of light let in?

Nikolai

cjphotojapan wrote:

How much difference between 2.0 and 2.8 in the amount of light let in?

Almost two times (1.4^2 ~ 2.0)

pyry

Nikolai wrote:

cjphotojapan wrote:

How much difference between 2.0 and 2.8 in the amount of light let in?

Almost two times (1.4^2 ~ 2.0)

Which is one stop.

Opening up from 2.8 to 2 would allow you to halve your exposure time.

Scott_Quier

cjphotojapan wrote:

How much difference between 2.0 and 2.8 in the amount of light let in?

f/2.0 --> f/2.8 is a one stop reduction in aperture. As indicated by Nikolai, this is approximately a reduction by half in the amount of light admitted.

mercphoto

pyry wrote:

Since sports is more about freezing movement, it's not going to help a whole lot. Aperture is much more important.

Absolutely correct and I wanted to re-iterate that. Image stabilization does NOT freeze a moving subject (such as a basketball player). All it does is keep the lens from shaking. But if your subject is moving while that shutter is open (the case in sports) then what good does it do you? You need the 2.8 more than the IS when it comes to traditional sports shooting.

Having said that the image stabilizer is nice if you ever have to do slow-shutter panning shots. I used Mode 2 all the time on my lens (which brings up another point to discuss: mode 1 versus mode 2 image stabilizer). For example, I first tried these car-to-car shots with my 24-70/2.8 but had to switch to my 70-200/2.8 with image stabilizer (in mode 2) to keep camera shake from ruining the photo. (what I really needed was the 24-105, as 70mm was too much lens for this shot):

cjphotojapan

Thank you to all of you for so much great information.:D

rpcrowe

I love IS for general purpose photography...
First, I don't shoot indoor sports.

Second, If I did, I would not want a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens for this purpose. I would carry at least two cameras with prime lenses in the area of at least f/1.8-f/2 but, even better f/1.4.

Third, If you use your 70-200mm f/2.8L for general purpose hand-held shooting, the IS version will be at lot more versatile. I use a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens (I chose this because it suits my needs better than the heavier and larger f/2.8L models) and I can shoot fully extended at 1/60 second using f/4 with the IS assist turned on and get nearly 100% sharp images. At 1/30 second using f/4 I don't quite get 100% sharp imagery but, my percentage of keepers is respectable.

Shooting fully extended at 1/120 second using f/2.8 (without IS) I would get very few keepers and if I shot at 1/60 second at f/2.8 I would get virtually no keepers. The 1/120 second and 1/60 second are the equivalents of 1/60 and 1/30 second at f/4.

Of course, you could shoot in lower light using the f/2.8L IS model than with either the f/4L IS or the f/2.8 (non-IS) lenses.

You can always turn off the IS if you don't want it - you cannot turn it on if you don't have it.

Shooting at the "peak of the action" is a tried and true way to shoot sports at a slower shutter speed and get sharp images. Using IS is particularly good for POA shooting because the general image will be sharp and often the slight blur of a moving player caught at POA adds to the feeling of motion. This is often more interesting than a totally frozen shot.