VR...is it helping?

A friend just posted on FB that her D7000 with a lens that doesn't have VR is bugging her. I was surprised - I haven't noticed any difference between photos with VR and without. Am I alone in this?

I didn't have a VR lens until I bought the D7000 a couple years ago, and even as a kid I was playing around with my parents' Minolta SLR camera and lenses, which of course didn't have IS/VR/etc. So, maybe I was already used to being steady or increasing the shutter speed to compensate when things are less steady, and the VR doesn't come into play much for me.

When would I notice the difference? Lower light situations, I assume, but of course you want to turn it off anyway for sports and the like...

You should notice a difference between VR and non-VR at slow shutter speeds. There is a rule of thumb that the slowest usable shutter speed (without VR) for a given focal length f (in mm) is 1/f (in s). For example, for a 50-mm lens that would be 1/50 s. Try taking a few pictures handheld at 3 stops below this value, i.e. about 1/5 s. You should notice a difference with the VR on and off.

At shutter speeds shorter than 1/f there will be no difference.

skater said:

A friend just posted on FB that her D7000 with a lens that doesn't have VR is bugging her. I was surprised - I haven't noticed any difference between photos with VR and without. Am I alone in this?

I didn't have a VR lens until I bought the D7000 a couple years ago, and even as a kid I was playing around with my parents' Minolta SLR camera and lenses, which of course didn't have IS/VR/etc. So, maybe I was already used to being steady or increasing the shutter speed to compensate when things are less steady, and the VR doesn't come into play much for me.

When would I notice the difference? Lower light situations, I assume, but of course you want to turn it off anyway for sports and the like...

Click to expand...

Well first of all VR is not something you should have running unless you need it; it's supposed to be used when needed and then turned off. I think it was Thom Hogan that said, "The simple fact is VR is a solution to a problem, and if you don't have that problem using VR can become a problem of its own."

That being said, VR should be used when you want to use a shutter speed that may cause blur due to camera shake.

....

Its more even more help when using long lenses,hand holding a 600mm with out it can be a challenge if the light is not good.

My experience with VR is that it helps a lot when shooting slow shutter single shots. Depending what lens you use, there's in each case a minimum shutter required to get sharp shots handheld. The moment you go lower in shutter speed your ratio of sharp shots decreases. You can get around it by shooting burst which often has at least one of them sharp. But that works only that far.

For those shots, VR improves your odds at a sharp shot but it's not as if it guarantees sharp shots. There's still something like shooting technique required and understanding the limits of VR.

For shutters speeds faster than 1/500s Nikon advises to turn VR off. My experience with fast shutters and VR is that there's little benefit to it and during bursts, it works against me. When I shoot fast bursts with VR enabled, I have fewer sharp shots than when I shoot the same with VR disabled.

Why that's the case we can theorize about but it's unlikely we will come to an agreement. So take my problems with VR as anecdotal.

I'd not enable it when you use the minimum (or faster) shutter required for a sensor/focal length combination.


Would I buy a lens for the VR alone?

No.

The only lens I leave VR (or VC, in this case) turned on by default is the Tamzooka. Everything else has it turned off when I pick up the camera. And I only own 3 lenses that have it.. the rest of the lenses in my harem don't.

I guess this is a result of my having cut my teeth on film, back when 'auto' was a rare word used in conjunction with photography at large. VR just didn't exist. So one learned how to properly handle a camera if one wanted sharp images.

Thanks. I can see it being useful in the helicopter example given in the linked article, but at the same time I'd probably have the shutter speed up pretty high in that situation exactly because of the vibration. I guess I'm a high-speed shutter kind of guy, when I can get away with it.

VR is actually most useful to me before the shot in stabilizing the view, which probably means I shake more than I did in my youth.

VR can reduce shake, but it's not a guaranteed fix. Some marketing even states things like improvement in 70% of the shots.

VR does slow camera operation, reducing fps speeds, which seems to indicate it delays the shutter firing until it has centered. So a fast moving subject could be somewhere else by the time it fires. <<< speculating here

VR uses more battery.

One more tool, can be useful and may not be useful.

If I had a passel of non-VR lenses, I don't know that I would worry about trading up (over or possibly down). Other things are probably more critical.

When i'm in my blind panning and trying to keep up with deer and turkey with the Tamron 150-600, sometimes it's really quiet and i can hear the "clunk" of the VR kicking in....then a humming noise....then beautiful images. Without it, i really couldn't imagine how to get a good image at an effective focal range of 900mm!!!!
With video i still use back button focus, which is not problem for the Tamron. Just keep the VR on and it keeps working continuously. Amazing results for video.
With my 18-140 and shooting landscapes, i don't even think about Vr and always trust the tripod unless it's early in the day. I could get by without it for my type of shooting on landscapes.

VR is more than just a tool to avoid camera shake if used correctly it can become part of the creative quartet,ISO, aperture, shutter speed and last but not least VR,if VR allows the use of a slower shutter speed and so a smaller aperture or lower ISO that to my mind makes it part of the creative tools in your camera and lens.

I only have one lens that has VR and it's the Nikkor AF 80-400mm d lens, and I think VR helps while shooting free hand. But I bought a gimble head to improve things over the VR trying to compensate for my hands shaking at times. Lol
So I guess I don't exactly "need" VR, though I admit I do like having the option!lol

No wait a minute! I may have 2 lenses with VR, because I bought a Tamron lens from my buddy @Eduard! Maybe it has VR, I never noticed one way or another! Lol