IS required on for RF lens and bodies??

[Ltdave]

i shoot sports with a couple of other photographers and while im still using my 5D3 and 5D4 and EF lenses, one of the other has the R7 and is using the 70-200f2.8 (non-Z model)

he shot something (i dont remember what he said it was but out of 1,000 images or so, he only had about a 1:10 hit rate on sharp images. he said he heard or found that the IS on the lens has to be turned on and active with the IBIS on the R bodies.

is this something, i might need to be concerned with if i start using my 6m2 for sports? its primarily used for portrait/fashion/beauty work right now so very little camera movement (no panning as such) with the canon EF/RF adapter and EF70-200 f2.8 or EF50f1.4

seems strange to me that sharp images (not necessarily out of focus) cant be achieved the old fashion way of holding still and using focal length reciprocal shutter speeds

 

[paddler4]

IS offsets camera motion. The two major problems with sports photography are subject motion and AF tracking failure, neither of which are helped by IS. Sports during the daytime are shot at high shutter speeds, so it's unlikely that camera motion was his problem. More likely subject motion or poor AF tracking.

I generally just leave lens IS turned on when using my R6II. See p. 309 in the manual. Panning is not relevant for most shooting I do. For some sports, you may want to switch the lens to a mode that allows for panning.

 

[Mike_d]

I have an R6 and use an EF 100-400 with an IS switch on the body. The IS switch controls body+lens IS together. They're either both on or both off. I normally keep the IS on mode 1 as I find it calms down the viewfinder, especially at 400mm, making it easier to get the AF point on target. If someone is getting a 10% sharp image rate with these cameras, something is horribly wrong with their camera, lens, or knowledge thereof.

 

[Ltdave]

I have an R6 and use an EF 100-400 with an IS switch on the body. The IS switch controls body+lens IS together. They're either both on or both off. I normally keep the IS on mode 1 as I find it calms down the viewfinder, especially at 400mm, making it easier to get the AF point on target. If someone is getting a 10% sharp image rate with these cameras, something is horribly wrong with their camera, lens, or knowledge thereof.

well its not a knowledge issue as far as knowing how to take photographs or photography....

 

[Mike_d]

well its not a knowledge issue as far as knowing how to take photographs or photography....

There's a big learning curve when moving from Canon's DSLR to mirrorless auto-focus. If they're very new to ML and haven't fully grasped the differences yet, they could see low hit rates. But 10% does suggest something else is going on.

 

[West Coast Birder]

This table summarizes how EF lenses work on ML bodies:



As you can see, even when using EF lenses, the camera splits the duties for the various axes of image stabilization between in-body and lens. So, he MUST leave the IS on the ON position for EF lenses. For example, if you consider the EF 100-400 II, it has Optical Image stabilization, so an R mount camera handles the X/Y and roll with its IBIS but leaves the pitch and yaw adjustments to the lens.

The advantage of an RF lens is that the coordination between in-lens and in-body corrections is much better.

You can read more about all of this here:

Canon EOS R7 - In-Body Image Stabilizer (IBIS)

Discover the In-Body Image Stabilizer (IBIS) loaded in the EOS R7. Find out how the IBIS provides highly effective image stabilization whatever lens you use.

www.canon-europe.com

 

[Ltdave]

the issue was with the RF 70-200 f2.8 on an R7

 

[West Coast Birder]

the issue was with the RF 70-200 f2.8 on an R7

Oh sorry, I misunderstood. In that case, he has as good an image stabilization system as can be, with the body and lens working in concert by design. So if is either user error or something is wrong.

From the infornation I can gather from Google, the RF 70-200 F/2.8 non-Z lens has optical IS. Therefore, from the table, the camera will benefit from leaving the lens IS on for pitch and yaw corrections.

Has he put his rig on a tripod and done some controlled experiments to check if his keeper rate improves? That way, he can at least remove any potential hand-holding impact from the equation. Another relatively easy experiment is to borrow a lens or body from someone else to decouple the lens/body combo and narrow down if it is the lens or the body that might be the culprit. If his keeper rate does not improve, then it might be time to contact Canon service.

 

[gonzogolf]

I wonder what shutter speed he was using. The high pixel density on the r7 means you generally want to be faster than you might think hand held, sports likely makes that even more important. When I first started shooting birds in flight I was astounded that I was getting motion blur at anything below 1/2000

 

[paddler4]

I agree with west coast birder: if possible, substitute another lens to indicate water there is a problem with that one. However, not having more information and not having seen the photos, I’m hesitating a guess that the problem is nothing to do with image stabilization. That’s not a very long lens, so it shouldn’t take a terribly high shutter speed to rule out camera motion as the culprit. I’d still place my bet with auto focus problems. The AF tracking system is comp

 

[paddler4]

It’s often not too hard to distinguish camera motion blur from AF problems and subject motion blur. If anything in the image is sharp, it’s not camera motion. If something thing near the person, like grass under their feet, is sharp, it’s likely subject motion. If nothing at all is sharp, that suggests camera motion, and so on.

 

[Jan1977]

i shoot sports with a couple of other photographers and while im still using my 5D3 and 5D4 and EF lenses, one of the other has the R7 and is using the 70-200f2.8 (non-Z model)

he shot something (i dont remember what he said it was but out of 1,000 images or so, he only had about a 1:10 hit rate on sharp images. he said he heard or found that the IS on the lens has to be turned on and active with the IBIS on the R bodies.

is this something, i might need to be concerned with if i start using my 6m2 for sports? its primarily used for portrait/fashion/beauty work right now so very little camera movement (no panning as such) with the canon EF/RF adapter and EF70-200 f2.8 or EF50f1.4

seems strange to me that sharp images (not necessarily out of focus) cant be achieved the old fashion way of holding still and using focal length reciprocal shutter speeds

I shoot a lot of sports (field sports/ rugby) most of the time with R series cameras now. I just turn IS off (through the lens switch, which also turns off IBIS). Shutter speeds are high enough to compensate for some camera movement. I do this with both my RF as EF lenses.

I never did controlled tests, but in the past I occasionaly shot with IS on. I never really noticed an improvement, and sometimes felt like I were getting less results like the IS working against me when I actively followed play. So I decided to keep it off (just in case). Next to that, as I shoot a lot I do not want to 'wear' out the IS system while not needing it. (I do not expect the IS to wear out that easily, but reducing its run time should not hurt its lifetime).

When I do some birding with my long lenses (100-500 or 200-800) I usually have IS on, despite often having high enough shutter speeds. With those RF lenses I feel they handle tracking and panning with the camera fine. I leave it on in those occasions as I also shoot static birds and am waiting for birds to start moving. The stabilization helps to stabilize the view in the viewfinder, while in those situations there are longer times between shots/ burst of shots, so the calmer view is preferred (especially when towards 800mm, whereas for my sports I usually won't be over 400mm).

So I would say there is no need to keep IS on when shootings sports with your R-series. If you feel it really helps, turn it on but no need for it (expecting your shutterspeeds being faster than 1/800 or so).

Hard to say what the problem is the other photographer is having. I have shot with the R7 and always felt for field sports I got a lower hit rate with it than with my R5 or R6 (original versions). It just felt like that with sports and not so much for birding. I never did a controlled test on that, so it may just have been my imagination or other circumtstance playing a bigger part than I realised at the time. (For example heat haze which may have been more noticable with R7 due to trying to take shots of subjects further away, using the crop-factor to fill the frame. When I shot the R7 next to the R5 I always put my longest glass on the crop body.)