P#23 Q2E: Can Great Image Stabilizing Features Replace the Need for a Tripod?

Gotta Love Technology

Scott Stulberg: One of the other things that I talked about before is IS (image stabilizing) on a Canon and vibration reduction on a Nikon. I really feel that they are essential to good travel photography.

I noticed that a lot of people do not bring a tripod when they're traveling. I personally bring a tripod everywhere in the world with me. It's absolutely quintessential. It's going to take your photography up ten notches.

If you use a tripod, you know what you're doing. It will help you with composition, it will help you with getting sharpness, it will help you with long exposures -- it's the only way you can do a long exposure that's more than a half a second. I do some of my exposures at 30 seconds long, so a tripod is a must. I have a bridge shot that was a 15 or 30 second exposure and you have to use a tripod for something like that.

Image stabilizing is such an important feature, and if you spend a little more money for a good image stabilized lens, it can help boost your shutter speed. When they say, "Oh, it's a three stop image stabilizer," that means instead of shooting at 1/125th without a tripod, I can go down to 1/60th which is one stop, I can go down to 1/30th which is another stop, and I can go down to 1/15th which is another stop.

That means you could conceivably take a very sharp picture at 1/15th of a second handheld and not have to use a tripod. In fact, Canon makes a 70-200mm f4 lens, which is the only lens I know in the world right now that offers a four-stop image stabilizing feature. The secret to getting that fourth stop is you have to hold the shutter down for a second before you take the picture. That engages that fourth stop. A Canon technical guy told me that because nobody knew how to get that fourth stop.

People should really think about spending extra money for image stabilizing if they can. It's some of the best technology in the world. It just helps tremendously getting a sharper shot.

To Sum Up

Want to take your photographs up to the next level without having to constantly drag out a tripod? With the right equipment it's definitely possible. Scott Stulberg suggests investing money in image stabilizing lenses to improve the quality of your hand-held photo shoots.