VR with monopod?

--- but when shooting with 55-300mm lens on top of a monopod, are the rules the same as with a tripod that you turn off the VR on the lens?

Re: Probably a silly question

A monopod will still have slight movement whereas a tripod should have no movement - therefore the VR would be useful for a monopod. However I never use VR if I'm able to get speeds of 1/500 as the VR really isn't needed for such fast speeds.

Re: Probably a silly question

That is what I was thinking. Never considered speed and never considered turning off the VR. Thought it was something to leave on pretty much all the time.

It's a good idea to get in the habit of using a monopod with any 300mm zoom lens. Lighting conditions can change very quickly and you may not be able to maintain a high shutter speed. Also another very good reason is to hold a steady focus point. The camera may be able to eliminate camera shake but if you have an active subject keeping the focus point zoomed out to 300mm is another problem altogether.

Thank you gentlemen.

Re: Probably a silly question

KWJams said:

That is what I was thinking. Never considered speed and never considered turning off the VR. Thought it was something to leave on pretty much all the time.

Click to expand...

Hi Ken.

Actually Thom Hogan (and I fully agree) suggests that VR should be turned OFF most of the time and turned on only when absolutely necessary. Essentially VR in some situations can actually rob your image of sharpness and/or cause focusing to be more difficult/less accurate. Here is a good article on the topic from Hogan about this issue: Nikon VR explained

Of course VR certainly has it's place and can be a very valuable feature. However the bottom line for me: My VR is off most of the time.

Thanks, That explains a lot. Last weekend I took 891 pictures at a hillclimb and the majority of them were with my monopod with the VR on. Out of all those pictures only 489 were crisp keepers.

I was watching my breathing and making that the shutter release was as smooth as possible and watched for any after shutter release wobble in the view finder and could not understand why so many were slightly blurry.

Peter, using a monopod with the VR turned on is very useful if you have to shoot at something less than camera shake stop motion shutter speed. As a general rule VR only has value when camera shake can enter your shot. If you are shooting at stop motion speeds you should turn the VR off. For camera shake stop motion the general rule is to use a shutter speed that is the inverse of the focal length, i.e. 200mm = 1/200 sec. If you are shooting at less than that speed then turn on the VR, if much less than that speed then use the VR and a monopod. If you are using a tripod with the camera locked down then turn the VR off. You may already know all of this and it's been said before but it's always worth repeating. More shots have been lost because even experienced photographers forget to apply these simple guide lines.

Is there any reason not to purchase a non-VR 55-200 mm lens? Assuming you tend to have a tripod with you pretty much all of the time, is it still worth paying the extra to have the VR for those "just in case" moments?

For a crazy antique camera hand held available light film shooter like me a monopod is VR...LOL

This is an interesting topic...I'm curious if anyone has any difficulty using a camera with telephoto lens on a monopod? Is there a point at which the weight of your equipment dictates a tripod?