When image stabilization matters

If you're shopping for a camera, here's some advice on image stabilization:
  • In general, it's nice to have. Mainly on cameras with a long optical zoom. Because a longer lens tends to magnify mistakes, including camera shake.
  • Contrary opinion: if you're looking at cameras with short zoom lenses (say, 3X optical zoom), you don't really need image stabilization. That short-range zoom won't magnify your mistakes as much as a longer lens.
  • If you religiously shoot without a flash, then image stabilization can be your friend. (Think: football, basketball, wildlife photos.)
  • If you religiously use a tripod, you must turn off image stabilization. The resulting images will be flawed. (Think: natural light portraits, still life scenes.)
I tend to use sensor- or lens-based image stabilization, in which the camera's mechanical parts perform the steadying work. Cameras that boast of "digital image stabilization" automatically increase the ISO (or light sensitivity) of the image, so your camera can select a faster shutter speed. This isn't bad in some situations, but higher shutter speeds almost always result in digital noise -- multicolored speckles in your image -- that reduce the accuracy of the shot.

Historically, Panasonic Lumix cameras delivered the best optical image stabilization -- but the company used that technology to compensate for tiny image sensors that resulted in noisy photographs. Now, the playing field is slightly more level; almost all superzoom cameras have image stabilization.

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