Greetings, folks! When you're taking handheld shots of birds in flight at speeds of 1/2000 and beyond, do you keep the IS on or turn it off? Is there any downside to keeping the IS on? I ask because I learned once that the Canon 300mm f4 had some issues with IS and shutter speeds of 1/2000 and leaving the IS on could result in a less-than-sharp image. Personally, I use the 70-300L and I wonder if anyone has any tips, ideas, suggestions? Thanks most sincerely for your time and trouble...
Hi Jack, I'm no expert, I made my first in flight shots 2 weeks ago. I used the Nikkor 80-400 with the IS set to panning mode and 1/1000 sec. No problems with less than sharp images. But lets hear what the experts chime in.
Jack,
The Canon 300 f/4 has a generation 1 IS, and in my experience the images become soft when IS is on with shutter speeds about 1/2000 second. But newer IS, like in the current 300 f/2.8, 500 f/4, 600 f/4, 800 f/5.6 are newer generations and I've not seen any issues with softness with fast shutter speeds all the way up to 1/8000 second. Of course there is little need for IS at high shutter speed, but if one is imaging in varied conditions, it is OK to leave it on. If you have the 70-300 L IS, which is new it should be a newer IS too.
A friend of mine who spoke with Chuck Westfall a few years ago about this stated that IS has no effect on the Canon telephoto lenses above 1/640 of a second. I'm not sure of the validity of this, but it seems to follow my own personal experience with the Canon 500mm and 600mm lenses. If this same statement holds true for the version II models, I have no idea.
IS and flight shots...
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