SL2 - how effective is IBIS + OIS

[Chaemono]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

It has been stated before that IBIS + OIS is only available when a 'native' lens is mounted on either the SL2 or the S1R/S1, i.e. a Leica lens with OIS on the SL2 and a Lumix FF lens with OIS on the S1/R.  If one attaches a Leica lens with OIS, like the 90-280 APO-VE-SL, for example, to a Panasonic body, one has the choice of Lens OIS, Body IBIS, or Off.  If one attaches a Panasonic lens with OIS to a Panasonic body, one has a choice of Lens OIS, Body IBIS, or both.  With the SL2, Leica reduced it to a choice of either Stabilzation On or Off.  I mounted the 90-280 APO-VE-SL on the SL2 in order to shoot some windows in a cathedral and also to see how effectively Stabilization On works when both, the lens and the sensor, are stabilized.  I shot mostly in horizontal mode because I could hold the combo more steadily this way (don't have the handgrip).  I was really impressed with how well the combination of IBIS + OIS worked.  I managed to get one sharp shot handheld at 260 mm with a shutter speed of only 1/20 sec.  You can see all of the pictures here: https://chaemono.smugmug.com/SL2-light-and-color/.  

The fact that combined IBIS + OIS only functions with Panasonic lenses on the S1/R and with SL lenses on the SL2 may be a compelling enough reason to use the 'native' OIS zooms with the respective cameras, IMO.

Here are less compressed JPEGs of the two below: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TN53T9/

SL2 + 90-280 APO-VE-SL handheld at 260 mm

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

ISO 400 f/4 @/1/20 sec.

Crop from above

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Chaemono

[scott kirkpatrick]

Evaluating stabilization is tricky.  The number of stops that camera makers are allowed to quote are based on a camera secured to a vibrating test table which plays a standard series of motions thought to simulate a proper range of user shakes.  I think (but am not entirely sure) that a 50 mm lens and a test target at a few feet distance are used. The shooter's own stability is a factor, just as it is in marksmanship with a rifle.  Standing up is harder than sitting, and prone is best.  You are getting a shutter speed about four stops lower than 1/f -- was every shot at 1/20 this sharp or is this the best of several?  Were you sitting or standing? 

I find the 90-280 pretty heavy and hard to steady when standing and shooting at a tree 50 m above me.  I got steadier results using the SL2 and an R 180/2.8, which is lighter but has no OIS. Sitting inside with the SL2 and the APO SC 50  SL, shooting at a wall of books 2 m away, I got half my shots sharp at 1.5 seconds exposure, all of them sharp at 1 sec.  That's about 6 stops under pretty favorable conditions.

Do we know that the SL2 uses both IBIS and OIS on the two SL zooms?  I think I saw that David Farkas said so, but I would prefer to hear it from Wetzlar directly.  Otherwise I would suspect that this may be on the list for a future firmware upgrade. 

Edited January 20, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Chaemono]

vor 22 Minuten schrieb scott kirkpatrick:

[...]
-- was every shot at 1/20 this sharp or is this the best of several?  Were you sitting or standing? 
[...]

No, not every shot but quite a few. This was one of the best.  I was standing because the windows are high up behind columns (see here: https://www.spottinghistory.com/view/3744/mainz-cathedral/).  In the gallery (first link) there are three shots at 1/30 sec., one at 236 mm, one at 271 mm, one at 268 mm.  The 236 mm is about equally sharp, the other two are good enough unless one zooms in 3:1.  There is one at 1/25 sec. at 253 mm, also impressive.  I did shoot each window about six to eight times.  Went back to some of them and repeated. I was in there for about 45 minutes. 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Chaemono

[thighslapper]

From a couple of days ago ...... freezing cold and blowing a gale ...... 1/15 sec with SL2+70-200 at 200mm. 

My general rule of thumb is 1 over focal length/10 in seconds to be sure of handheld sharp images with OIS/IBIS or any combination. I can get away with slower, but it becomes more unreliable unless I'm very careful.  The SL2 seems as good as the S1R irrespective of what combinations of lenses are used .... which I was a bit surprised with. I suspect Panasonic are over optimistic and Leica rather conservative when it comes to claims for stabilisation. 

ps .... although the crop is 100% is seems to be displayed at 2:1, so it is in fact sharper than it looks 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited January 20, 2020 by thighslapper

[Chaemono]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb thighslapper:

From a couple of days ago ...... freezing cold and blowing a gale ...... 1/15 sec with SL2+70-200 at 200mm. 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Yep, I believe you now.  It is doable. 

[scott kirkpatrick]

43 minutes ago, thighslapper said:

From a couple of days ago ...... freezing cold and blowing a gale ...... 1/15 sec with SL2+70-200 at 200mm. 

My general rule of thumb is 1 over focal length/10 in seconds to be sure of handheld sharp images with OIS/IBIS or any combination. I can get away with slower, but it becomes more unreliable unless I'm very careful.  The SL2 seems as good as the S1R irrespective of what combinations of lenses are used .... which I was a bit surprised with. I suspect Panasonic are over optimistic and Leica rather conservative when it comes to claims for stabilisation. 

ps .... although the crop is 100% is seems to be displayed at 2:1, so it is in fact sharper than it looks 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

That's a scary view.  I also got 3.5 stops with the 90-280 and four stops with the R 180/2.8, but in much less stressful conditions.  (12/f would be 3.5 stops.)  Does this mean that you no longer need to schlep the RRS tripod on your hikes?

Edited January 20, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[Chaemono]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Given thighslapper‘s example above, I suspect that IBIS + OIS may work with Lumix lenses on the SL2 after all.  It definitely doesn’t work with the two SL zooms on the Panasonic cameras. 

[thighslapper]

23 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

That's a scary view.  I also got 3.5 stops with the 90-280 and four stops with the R 180/2.8, but in much less stressful conditions.  (12/f would be 3.5 stops.)  Does this mean that you no longer need to schlep the RRS tripod on your hikes?

No it's worse ...... the S1R was on the tripod with the 24-90 attached waiting for the light to change and I was using the SL2+70-200 handheld in the meantime. I am carrying more than ever ..... 

[Simone_DF]

8 minutes ago, Chaemono said:

Given thighslapper‘s example above, I suspect that IBIS + OIS may work with Lumix lenses on the SL2 after all. 

It works. I don't have the photo anymore, but as a test, I shot with the 24-105 at 105 and 1/6s and f4 and the picture was sharp when zoomed in 100%.

[SrMi]

Just now, Simone_DF said:

It works. I don't have the photo anymore, but as a test, I shot with the 24-105 at 105 and 1/6s and f4 and the picture was sharp when zoomed in 100%.

How do you know that both IBIS and OIS work together when using Lumix lenses on SL2? It could be IBIS only, after all it is about 5 stops o stabilization.

[SrMi]

3 minutes ago, thighslapper said:

No it's worse ...... the S1R was on the tripod with the 24-90 attached waiting for the light to change and I was using the SL2+70-200 handheld in the meantime. I am carrying more than ever ..... 

Any reason why you used Panasonic lens on Leica and Leica lens on Panasonic :-)?

[Simone_DF]

1 minute ago, SrMi said:

How do you know that both IBIS and OIS work together when using Lumix lenses on SL2? It could be IBIS only, after all it is about 5 stops o stabilization.

Ah, good question, I didn't think about that!

[scott kirkpatrick]

Folks, the only way we will know if the SL2 is using both IBIS and OIS in coordination is if Stefan Daniel swears it is so, or someone gets a stethoscope out (we have doctors on this forum, don't we?) , sets the system for MF so that only the OIS could be moving inside the lens and listens carefully while moving the camera and lens around very gently while the shutter is half-pressed.

Edited January 21, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[SrMi]

21 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Folks, the only way we will know if the SL2 is using both IBIS and OIS in coordination is if Stefan Daniel swears it is so, or someone gets a stethoscope out (we have doctors on this forum, don't we?) , sets the system for MF so that only the OIS could be moving inside the lens and listens carefully while moving the camera and lens around very gently.

Sometimes OIS can be heard/felt even without stethoscope. What happens when you turn IS on/off on a Lumix lens when mounted on SL2? Does it turn on/off IBIS as well (as done on Nikon Z cameras)?

Edited January 20, 2020 by SrMi

[thighslapper]

1 hour ago, SrMi said:

Any reason why you used Panasonic lens on Leica and Leica lens on Panasonic :-)?

Because the SL2 is basically not that good as a landscape camera, so my main tripod + mid zoom combo is the S1R and the 24-90 or 16-35.

The SL2 is fine for handheld quickly taken images and very long exposures. It's my 2nd body and currently has the 70-200 permanently on it. 

I could go on with a long rant about how the S1R is much more suited to landscape work, but I've mentioned most things elsewhere. Basically one complements the other and neither do everything I need perfectly. I must admit that the SL2 produces beautifully toned images that need very little LR processing and are a tad sharper, but the S1R is much more ergonomically suited to tripod work, particularly when the weather is awful and you need to wear gloves..... which I'm afraid is most of the time in the UK and the other locations I frequent. 

[Tailwagger]

Being utterly unfamiliar with exactly how these two systems work, I'm a little skeptical about how great the advantage might be to having both. Without some form of extremely sophisticated coordination... pretty obvious you cant have both systems reacting independently to the same input on the same axis... the only possibility is to divide responsibilities between systems on a per axis basis. What that buys you I don't know but certainly it ain't going to be additive. Perhaps OIS deals with certain types of motion better than IBIS and vice versa which might get you a little bit better performance but if anyone is expecting 3 addition stops, my guess is they will certainly be disappointed.

[Jeff S]

David Farkas wrote an additional half stop plus..from 5.5 to 6+... for the two SL zooms with OIS.

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2019/11/leica-sl2-announced-47mp-ibis-cine4k60-and-more/

Jeff

[michali]

7 hours ago, Tailwagger said:

Being utterly unfamiliar with exactly how these two systems work, I'm a little skeptical about how great the advantage might be to having both. Without some form of extremely sophisticated coordination... pretty obvious you cant have both systems reacting independently to the same input on the same axis... the only possibility is to divide responsibilities between systems on a per axis basis. What that buys you I don't know but certainly it ain't going to be additive. Perhaps OIS deals with certain types of motion better than IBIS and vice versa which might get you a little bit better performance but if anyone is expecting 3 addition stops, my guess is they will certainly be disappointed.

I recall reading recently that it's a question of co-ordination between lens and camera. If the camera body and lens are from the same manufacturer, using both IBIS and OIS is fine and they co-ordinate with each other.

However when you use you a camera and lens combination from different manufacturers, e.g. Panasonic & Leica, you  have to switch off one of the stabilization systems, as they will not coordinate with one another. When I had the S1R and used it in combination with the Leica VE90-280mm L with both IBIS & OIS, one of my gripes was issues with blurry images. 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Camera makers let the marketing folks do the talking about stabilization.  Nobody talks about how artificial the official testing protocol is, but you can Google it and read it yourselves.  Since the results you can expect depend on the photographer and their technique, it is really something you have to test for yourself.  On OIS vs IBIS, the main factors are that OIS inside the lens is better suited for long lenses, and has the limitation that it cannot correct for rotation about the lens axis (so there are fewer axes to work on).  I believe the licensees on the L-mount collaboration are not expected to share information about stabilization except through additional agreements.  Olympus with its M-1 and 25-100 zoom set the bar for doing both types of stabilization starting about four years ago, but the others have had time to learn from them.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[MarkP]

13 hours ago, thighslapper said:

From a couple of days ago ...... freezing cold and blowing a gale ...... 1/15 sec with SL2+70-200 at 200mm. 

My general rule of thumb is 1 over focal length/10 in seconds to be sure of handheld sharp images with OIS/IBIS or any combination. I can get away with slower, but it becomes more unreliable unless I'm very careful.  The SL2 seems as good as the S1R irrespective of what combinations of lenses are used .... which I was a bit surprised with. I suspect Panasonic are over optimistic and Leica rather conservative when it comes to claims for stabilisation. 

ps .... although the crop is 100% is seems to be displayed at 2:1, so it is in fact sharper than it looks 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Is this with the 2.8 or 4.0 70-200 Pana S-Pro?