Should I ever turn off my camcorder's image stabilizer?

Should I ever turn off my camcorder's image stabilizer?

Tim Smith (Camcorder Training Specialist) gives expert video advice on: What is the difference between an "optical zoom" and "digital zoom"?; Should I ever turn off my camcorder's image stabilizer? and more...

All camcorders have a stabilization system, but strangely enough they also have an on-and-off switch for that. If stabilization seems like such a great thing, why would you want to turn it off? Well, there's a couple of reasons. If batteries are a big concern—stabilization does draw more power than not having it on, although it's not too significant. The biggest issue is that there are some gyroscopic sensors in all these cameras, that are looking for vibration, and vibration happens in a circular pattern, so if you've got this camera mounted on a tripod or setting flat on a table, it's not going to sense vibration in a circular pattern; it's only going to see it in one pattern, in a horizontal pattern. So, leaving stabilization on tends to cause an anomaly called a float—you start to pan between the left to right or you move your camera from left to right and at the end of it, because it's looking for vibration happening this away [in a circle] but only seeing it happening this way [side to side]. The image might continue to move a little bit at the end of your pan. So, it's really best any time you've got the camera locked down on something solid, turn the stabilization system off.