topic Re: Long Exposure Sharpness in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Long Exposure Sharpness

Pozo — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 01:34:17 GMT

Hi forum.

I like to shoot long exposures with a very dark ND filter. Should I be turning IS off on my lens for these captures?? I am basically using the 18-135 3.5-5.6 IS lens, on a tripod of course, with a remote trigger, locking up the mirror. I have tried making captures with IS on and with it off, and I'm not certain which gives consistently sharper results. My tripod is not the best, but I currently don't have the budget for a better tripod so I'm trying to maximize my results from the gear I have.

Thanks community

Re: Long Exposure Sharpness

TCampbell — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 01:53:28 GMT

If the camera is on a solid tripod... switch the IS feature off.

There are some lenses that can auto-sense when the camera is on a tripod, but you'd need a list to know which lenses can detect this automatically. So when in doubt.... just switch IS off whenever you are on a triopd.

Re: Long Exposure Sharpness

Skirball — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 02:24:44 GMT

I'm not fully convinced about the IS off on a tripod argument, for most modern lenses. Regardless, if you're tripod isn't that good, you might considering leaving it on anyway. The alleged loss of sharpness from using IS on a tripod is pretty small with most lenses. The impact of a rickety tripod and a long exposure will most likely be much greater.