VR (IS): Why You Want It On Every Lens

I'm not going to mince words here, VR (IS for Canon) is the absolute biggest advancement in photography in the last 20 years.  No other advancement has done anything to make your photos better.  Let me explain, every other advancement made has been an advancement in convenience, but they do not make your photos better.  Even digital, which is a huge advancement, only makes photography more continent, not better.  Sure, you can bring a tripod around, but why if you don't have to.  One of the hardest technical things to master will be shooting with very slow shutter speeds.

So for example, I can shoot reliably sharp photos with an 18mm lens at 1/10 a second without VR.  With VR I can shoot at 1 second and get it sharp.  To show the difference, here is a full size crop of fabric flowers at 1 second with no VR.

Camera: Nikon D80      

Lens: VR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G

Focal Length: 18mm

Shutter: 1/1

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

VR: Off

Flash: None

As you can see, the picture is useless, but now, the next shot all that is different is I flicked the VR switch on.  Still 1 second, still 18mm.

Camera: Nikon D80      

Lens: VR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G

Focal Length: 18mm

Shutter: 1/1

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

VR: On

Flash: None

That shot is sharp and good.

Now of course we could always use a big aperture instead.  For instance, I could use a 50mm f/1.8 instead of the VR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6.  At 50mm the 18-55mm will have an aperture of about f/5.3.  Now Nikon claims you can shoot 4 stops slower shutter speed with VR, but even 3 stops will allow you the same exposure value as the 50mm.  For instance, if we follow the wives tale of shooting no slower than your focal length then the darkest light we would want to shoot in with ISO100 is EV8 which we would be at with ISO100, f/1.8, and 1/60sec.  With the 18-55mm at 50mm our aperture is 3 stops tighter at f/5.3, but because of VR we now can shoot 3 stops slower at 1/8sec to make up the difference and still have proper exposure for EV8.

An added benefit is that we don't have to change out artistic impression of a shot due to light.  As we learned in Aperture: Using Aperture To Focus Your Viewer, opening up the aperture shrinks our depth of field.  With VR we are now not locked into have our aperture determined by available light.  For me, it isn't even an option, if VR is available, then VR it is.  For instance, the Nikon's 55-200mm G is available in non-VR and VR versions, and even though there is a significant price break, non-VR isn't even an option for me.

I hope these articles are informative, drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks for reading.