Controlling Your Digital Camera

When should I turn off my digital camera's "image stabilizer"?

Image stabilization is an important feature on your digital camera, and there are some times when it's best not to use it. The first time it's good not to use it is when you want to show the blur of your motion. So a lot of times I take pictures with a slow shutter speed while I'm driving in the car or panning or moving the camera, but I want to show a blur. That's number one. Number two is the image stabilizer is really designed to stop my handheld motion. If I'm in a car, in an airplane, or on a tripod, that's not handheld motion, so you need to test to see what picture looks best. And quite often I'll take two: one with the stabilizer on, one with the stabilizer off. If you're shooting in low light, you definitely need to turn the image stabilization off, because with a camera on a tripod, the image stabilizer will actually move slightly during the exposure and cause you to get a blurry picture. So once again, in low light on a tripod, image stabilizer off.