Image stabilization
techniques used to reduce blurring of images
Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure.
Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pitch) of the imaging device, though electronic image stabilization can also compensate for rotation about the optical axis (roll). It is mainly used in high-end image-stabilized binoculars, still and video cameras, astronomical telescopes, and also smartphones. With still cameras, camera shake is a particular problem at slow shutter speeds or with long focal length lenses (telephoto or zoom). With video cameras, camera shake causes visible frame-to-frame jitter in the recorded video. In astronomy, the problem of lens shake is added to variation in the atmosphere, which changes the apparent positions of objects over time.
Application in still photography
In photography, image stabilization can facilitate shutter speeds 2 to 5.5 stops slower (exposures 4 to 30 times longer), and even slower effective speeds have been reported.
A rule of thumb to determine the slowest shutter speed possible for hand-holding without noticeable blur due to camera shake is to take the reciprocal of the 35 mm equivalent focal length of the lens, also known as the "1/mm rule". For example, at a focal length of 125 mm on a 35 mm camera, vibration or camera shake could affect sharpness if the shutter speed is slower than 1⁄125 second. As a result of the 2-to-4.5-stops slower shutter speeds allowed by IS, an image taken at 1⁄125 second speed with an ordinary lens could be taken at 1⁄15 or 1⁄8 second with an IS-equipped lens and produce almost the same quality.
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