Camera shake

[ameerat42]

I reckon that if the manufacturer has tested it at x stops, rig or not, that's just stating what it's capable of.
It's would be little avail to then dispute that because most users can't get the same.

[arthurking83]

I reckon that if the manufacturer has tested it at x stops, rig or not, that's just stating what it's capable of.
It's would be little avail to then dispute that because most users can't get the same.

I'm thinking .. reality .. here.

what I mean is, the actual number of stops advantage isn't really an issue.
Whether this is 2 or 3 or 5 stops of advantage isn't that big a deal.
As long as it works OK.

Consider the situation you want to use the device.

Say for small twitchy birds.
If a 400mm capable lens allows 6 stops of shutter speed advantage, which means that you could shoot at say 1/30s fairly easily, are you really going to shoot that slow shutter speed at a twitchy bird that flits about at 10Hz!
Birds motion will make the static background nice and sharp, but the bird itself will be blurred.

One thing I found many years ago(~2014 or so) .. is that wide angle lens OIS(or IBIS) shouldn't be discounted as unimportant(like many used to back in the day).
Maybe for most photography it's not really an important advantage to have access too, but it is the 'modern era' and most, if not all, cameras also do video.

I did some video work for my sis back then and used the Tamron 24-70VC and without its VC a lot of the video would have come out looking like garbage.
Now I'm not a video person, strictly speaking, but her video friend pulled out at the last minute, so I did it for her.
Video itself came out more than usable. .. zero shakiness having been shot DSLR style for a decent period of time.
The audio came out a bit flaky as I didn't bring my external mic. I was going there to do some street photography for her, and bringing the shotgun mic wasn't necessary for that purpose.

This is why i reckon .. actual number of stops advantage isn't so important .. and to be accepted with many grains of salt ... and most folks don't really care too much. Interesting to know specs, but not really important.
Is the lens the right one is more important. Cost/focal length/focus speed/sharpness/etc. Does it have OIS? <- important for many. How good is the OIS .. for many folks, probably low on the priority of things they think about.