I did a test between my 70-200mm @ 135mm vs my 135mm gm shooting at 1/8 shutter on A9.
The percentage of sharp shots is really similar. It’s like the oss is completely useless. Is this the experience of others? Is it because of my a9 body isn’t updated to take adv of the oss or it’s just a Sony oss thing….
perhaps they look similar because the ibis by itself is really good, and the direction of your movements wasn't very much, along the two axis that are covered by o.i.s. on sony lenses.
for example, people claim that o.i.s. works better at long focal lengths.
*I am assuming that both cameras are yielding bad images
Have you tried other shutter speeds or shorter focal lengths ?
The OSS can only do so much. If the line-of-sight error is more than the angle that the lens can compensate you will be out of luck.
I do not know how much it can move (doesn't seem to be reported anywhere) but the longer the focal length and shorter the exposure the less well OSS will work.
I bet there there is some shutter-speed where it will make a difference.
5 pixels on an A9 @ 135mm is ~0.01 degrees. I bet that you are steering the camera much more than 0.01 degrees over your 1/8th s exposure on most of the images.
All that being said, you OSS could be broken too. My recommendation is to experiment with incrementally faster shutter speeds until there is a perceived difference.
osv2 wrote:
perhaps they look similar because the ibis by itself is really good, and the direction of your movements wasn't very much, along the two axis that are covered by o.i.s. on sony lenses.
for example, people claim that o.i.s. works better at long focal lengths.
Ok I did a bit of reading and the OSs is really not that useful as it does not cooperate with the ibis. They just compensate for different things. At 135mm, the yaw/pitch for ibis is probably just as effective as the oss so u don’t gain anything….
jbegis wrote:
*I am assuming that both cameras are yielding bad images
Have you tried other shutter speeds or shorter focal lengths ?
The OSS can only do so much. If the line-of-sight error is more than the angle that the lens can compensate you will be out of luck.
I do not know how much it can move (doesn't seem to be reported anywhere) but the longer the focal length and shorter the exposure the less well OSS will work.
I bet there there is some shutter-speed where it will make a difference.
5 pixels on an A9 @ 135mm is ~0.01 degrees. I bet that you are steering the camera much more than 0.01 degrees over your 1/8th s exposure on most of the images.
All that being said, you OSS could be broken too. My recommendation is to experiment with incrementally faster shutter speeds until there is a perceived difference....Show more →
Yes at 1/8 I am getting like 40% sharp shots on both. At least there isn’t a big change in the hit rate. I tried the 70-200 @ 135mm on my a74 and the hit rate went up. It is quite significant. Not sure if it is just the a74 has a better ibis.
If it is 70-200mm/4 you used, it has very bad OS. In this focal length range I have 100-400 GM and Batis 135 with OS, both are much better, especially Batis 135. I have not used any of the latest lenses with OS but Sony IBIS has recently improverd considerably.
A9 IBIS is not great, but it is there. Swich it off and you see what I mean
wind30 wrote:
I did a test between my 70-200mm @ 135mm vs my 135mm gm shooting at 1/8 shutter on A9.
The percentage of sharp shots is really similar. It’s like the oss is completely useless. Is this the experience of others? Is it because of my a9 body isn’t updated to take adv of the oss or it’s just a Sony oss thing….
There was a firmware update to the 24-105G which claimed to enable the lens's OSS to work in conjunction with the body's IBIS. I'm not sure whether it makes a substantial difference but the a7r5's IBIS alone lets me not worry much down to 1/20th with longish lenses, and I get a decent percentage sharp with even slower speeds, so I'm quite satisfied.
I just realised the new zve1 supports the body lens stabilisation… it’s the only other body other than a7r5. I wonder if this can be added by firmware to other bodies since zve1 stabilisation is only rated 5 stops.
It looks like Sony is not keen on adding additional functionality to older bodies through firmware updates. At this point, I wouldn't buy anything with hopes of getting something additional from Sony down the line.
On the topic of OSS being useless, I have OSS on my 200-600, but it is such a unique lens that it is hard for me to compare it to my normal lenses. I have never tried it with OSS turned off. I also had OSS on my Sony 24-105 G and Batis 85, but never felt any difference in terms of extra stabilization using those lenses. I try to keep the "1/focal length" rule for shutter speed to avoid blurry shots.
AFAIK OSS and IBIS do not work together on Sony cameras -- it's one or the other. The 135 was using IBIS and the 70-200 was using OSS and roughly speaking it should be a wash so your results are what I'd expect.
I find OSS most useful on longer focal lengths to steady the image in the viewfinder and on some lenses it feels like it performs better than on others. My 100-400, for example, seems to give me a much steadier image than my 200-600 (@400mm), but that could also be down to the relative weight of each lens and the corresponding stability of my arms! Panning is also probably a use for which lens OSS is an advantage.
I have had exceptional results with IBIS from the a7ii forward. I have a minor hand tremor that is fully silenced by Sony IBIS on the four bodies I have used from a7ii forward. I also shoot a fair amount in rough seas or bumpy helicopters. While some motion in those cases is aided by fast shutter speeds, my keeper rate with a Canon 5Dii with various lenses that had in-lens stabilization was about 20-70%, depending on how rough the seas were. On Sony, the keeper rate is nominally 100%…at least due to blurred images.
I use the Tamron 35-150 on A1, and IBIS has been more than sufficient for my purposes. Shooting handheld at 35 mm with 0.2 s SS is perfectly doable in my hands. I have never felt like I was missing in-lens OSS. This is a different matter with the 200-600 lens at 600 mm. Then, the added in-lens stabilization seems to be more useful. I am interested in the improved IBIS of A7RV and should soon have the opportunity to test this camera, on a loan from Sony. Perhaps, OSS should be even less important for lenses on A7RV.
I have 3 lenses for Sony with OIS; Batis 85 & 135 plus the 100-400 GM. Definitely the added OIS does help and I can shoot at 1 to 1-1/2 stops lower ss because of it. With the Batis 135 I have super sharp portrait photos at 1/15 of a second.
Far as the camera body the IBIS is better on my A7RIV than my older A7III; your A9 is even older. With the A7III and the FE 85 f1.8 lens (no OIS) I could not get sharp photos at even 1/50 of a second. I upgraded the FE 85 to the Batis 85 and now on the A7RIV 1/15 of a second is not a problem.
So your 40% in focus result at 1/8 ss does not surprise me as Sony IBIS is 2nd rate. I only say this because I have been using EM-1’s and now the OM-1 from Olympus, which has top notch IBIS, for 10 years. No issue to get 1 second sharp photos with IBIS which is a true 6 or 7 stops. Sony’s claimed 5 stops was more like 2 to 2-1/2 stops and from reliable reports the new A7RV IBIS is only 1 stop better. Still, it is a help and even a couple of stops can be useful.
I had both sets of superteles from Canon (RF400 and RF600, sold them here) and Sony (FE400 and FE600), and compared them side by side. Did both “lab” and field comparisons. In the lab (not sure if I can call this a lab lol) I shot a fine print fragment handheld, going from from 1/(focal length) to 1/(focal length / 2^5). Canon holds quite well till about 4 stops. 5 stops is a hit and miss. Sony images fall apart after 2 stops. I would not risk shooting the FE600/4 at 1/150s. In the field my AF hit rate (fast action) was so much better on the Sony lenses. Ultimately the number of keepers is what matters to me, so I kept the Sonys. If I cared more about shooting perching owls at dusk - I’d kept the Canon duo instead. Long story short - there’s no perfect system (maybe Nikon with their new 400 TC and 600 TC?), and yes Sony needs to come up with better OSS
