Sensor shift vs optical image stabilization
wrt super telephotos. ( this might need a new thread, not sure)
I wonder what is the maximum lens focal length upon which the Olympus IBIS will work.
I think the Olympus IBIS is the best in the industry so far, (apparently Sony thinks so), but there's got to be limit on how far the sensor can move. There's a limit for the lens IS to. I'm wondering if IBIS has more flexibility or less flexibility at longer telephoto lengths.
One of the implications for this is the future of Canon's and Nikon's mirrorless system. They are both sticking with lens stabilization for their mirrorless offerings so far, and I can't tell if that's to protect their lens market, or because they don't think IBIS is good enough, or they just don't have the tech Olympus does yet.
One way to translate the size and weight savings of mirrorless sytems into the lenses in the context of full frame systems would be to concentrate the image stabilization into the body, but Canon and Nikon don't seem to be going that way.
Right now you can pretty much put any SLR lens sytem onto any mirrorless system, with a mechanical adapter, because the flange distances sort themselves out, as long as they have manual aperture and focus.
The Canon M doesn't interest me at all. A full frame Canon mirrorless that could communicate with my Canon EF lenses would, especially if it added IS to my non-IS lenses, although, with better and better isos, a stop or two of IS isn't so important anymore, or is it?
I wonder what is the maximum lens focal length upon which the Olympus IBIS will work.
I think the Olympus IBIS is the best in the industry so far, (apparently Sony thinks so), but there's got to be limit on how far the sensor can move. There's a limit for the lens IS to. I'm wondering if IBIS has more flexibility or less flexibility at longer telephoto lengths.
One of the implications for this is the future of Canon's and Nikon's mirrorless system. They are both sticking with lens stabilization for their mirrorless offerings so far, and I can't tell if that's to protect their lens market, or because they don't think IBIS is good enough, or they just don't have the tech Olympus does yet.
One way to translate the size and weight savings of mirrorless sytems into the lenses in the context of full frame systems would be to concentrate the image stabilization into the body, but Canon and Nikon don't seem to be going that way.
Right now you can pretty much put any SLR lens sytem onto any mirrorless system, with a mechanical adapter, because the flange distances sort themselves out, as long as they have manual aperture and focus.
The Canon M doesn't interest me at all. A full frame Canon mirrorless that could communicate with my Canon EF lenses would, especially if it added IS to my non-IS lenses, although, with better and better isos, a stop or two of IS isn't so important anymore, or is it?
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Yikes. This is a very complicated and technical issue, but I'll try to give the short version in the interest of time.
It's not so much that longer focal length lenses stop working with sensor based stabilization technologies, it's just that sensor based stabilization is generally less effective on longer focal length "systems".
Partly this is due to the nature and size of the long lenses themselves, and partly in how they are used and held.
Dealing with hand-held shake issues (disregarding other vibrational and shake issues for the sake of brevity), longer focal length lenses tend to move around the lens more than they move around the camera body, due to the shift in system center-of-gravity (CG from here on). Shifting the CG forward in the system makes it very difficult for current camera based motion sensors to yield as much accuracy as a lens based sensor. Additionally, the operator tends to hold a longer lens differently than shorter focal lengths.
Add in the fact that longer focal length lenses (specifically prime telephoto lenses through prime super-telephoto lenses) generally have an opportunity to place the rear-most element of the lens well into the lens body, allowing space for a large optical motion correction module, and add the fact that the motion sensors can be placed pretty much wherever they are most effective for the system, and I hope that it becomes somewhat more obvious how an optical system tends to be better for telephoto applications.
Conversely, shorter focal length lenses tend to affect the CG of a camera system less than telephoto length lenses, and sensor shift (or other body-based stabilization systems) tend to work better with standard/normal focal lengths through wide-angle and super-wide-angle primes and zooms.
If you understand and accept my above premise then it should be evident that, with current technology, having both optical "and" sensor-based stabilization systems available should provide the optimal solution for an interchangeable lens system.
In this regard, Panasonic seems to lead the way:
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=237025
First, you need to qualify your statement to read, "Right now you can pretty much put any SLR lens system onto any mirrorless system [with a much shorter flange-focus distance], with a mechanical adapter, because the flange distances sort themselves out [by allowing space for a non-optical adapter to be inserted], ...". ... or something similar.
My great hope is that, eventually, all interchangeable lens camera manufacturers will devise systems to allow both camera body based stabilization as well as optical image stabilization, and eventually even "simultaneous and cooperative" multi-stabilized systems with some sort of super-resolution scene reference to guide the systems.
My bet is, “We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet”.
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