Are You Using the Greatest Camera Invention?

by Joseph T. Sinclair

We have at our fin­ger­tips the great­est inven­tion of dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, an inven­tion that’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant for fam­i­ly photographs.

In the old days, pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers paid big bucks to get a cam­era lens that could take good pho­tos in low light. A low-light lens might cost as much as 500% more than a reg­u­lar lens and give much bet­ter per­for­mance. What did such a lens do? It brought in more light enabling pho­tog­ra­phers to take pho­tos at a faster shut­ter speed. A faster speed in low light enables you to take a good pho­to with­out blur­ring or fuzziness.

Now, here’s the good news. For dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, there’s a new inven­tion called image sta­bi­liza­tion. It goes by oth­er names too, such as Anti-Shake, Steady-Shot, IS, and OIS. Image sta­bi­liza­tion gives you the extra capa­bil­i­ty to take a sharp pho­to­graph in low light. It equals, in effect, the expen­sive low-light pro­fes­sion­al lens.  For­tu­nate­ly, many phone cam­eras have image sta­bi­liza­tion. You don’t have to pay extra for it. What a great deal!

With­out image sta­bi­liza­tion a cam­era, if not held rock-steady, will blur any pho­to. I took the pho­to below on a dark night in Okla­homa City dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, while shiv­er­ing. It shows blur­ring com­pared to the sec­ond pho­to I took with the image sta­bi­liza­tion turned on.

Most peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ty tak­ing a sharp pho­to in low light because they can’t hold the cam­era steady enough. Image sta­bi­liza­tion instant­ly, elec­tron­i­cal­ly, and auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts the light sen­sor inside the cam­era to com­pen­sate for human shak­i­ness. This is the dig­i­tal cam­er­a’s answer to the expen­sive pro­fes­sion­al lens. And for­tu­nate­ly for us it works well.

You def­i­nite­ly want this fea­ture in your phone cam­era. Thus, when you go to buy a smart­phone, make sure that its cam­era has image sta­bi­liza­tion. More impor­tant­ly, if you do have image sta­bi­liza­tion in your cur­rent smart­phone’s camera—and you prob­a­bly do—make sure you have it turned on all the time (if you have a choice).

A phone cam­era takes pho­tos auto­mat­i­cal­ly. Con­se­quent­ly, you don’t know exact­ly how your phone cam­era takes pic­tures. All you need to know is that with image sta­bi­liza­tion turned on, you can take sharp­er pic­tures in low light. You don’t need a flash.

Be aware that when you do get sharp pho­tos in low light, peo­ple and mov­ing objects in such pho­tos might be blurred or fuzzy because they moved. In oth­er words, you can keep your cam­era from mov­ing by stay­ing steady and mak­ing sure you have image sta­bi­liza­tion turned on. That will give you a sharp­er over­all pic­ture. But you have no con­trol over peo­ple and oth­er mov­ing objects with­in the pho­to. Any­body or any­thing that moves in low light will be blurred.

The first pho­to below tak­en in low light at sun­set shows an over­all blur because I was care­less (unsteady) hold­ing the cam­era, even with image sta­bi­liza­tion turned on. For the sec­ond pho­to, I made it a point to hold my phone steady, and the result­ing pho­to shows pret­ty good sharp­ness.  But the gui­tarist moved his head caus­ing his head to blur in the photo.

Not many of us seek to take pic­tures when it’s get­ting dark, after it’s dark, or in places where it’s dark. Nonethe­less, we often find our­selves in such sit­u­a­tions. And when we take pho­tos, image sta­bi­liza­tion goes a long ways toward help­ing us take sharp pictures.

The ulti­mate ben­e­fit is that we can take well-lit pho­tos indoors at night with­out a flash. Indoor light­ing usu­al­ly pro­vides enough light for good sharp pho­tos. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant because phone cam­eras have weak flashes.

So don’t despair if your phone cam­era flash doesn’t work well. Take pho­tos any­way. If you get dark pho­tos indoors, turn on some more lights—and make sure image sta­bi­liza­tion is turned on.

Even with image sta­bi­liza­tion, you need to hold your phone as steady as pos­si­ble when shoot­ing in low light.

• Lean against a wall.
• Rest your elbows on a table.
• Stand up straight with your elbows tucked into your sides, breath in, and hold your breath as you shoot.
• Or use a tripod.

In fact, shoot­ing pho­tos indoors at night is a prime time and place for many fam­i­ly pho­tos. Image sta­bi­liza­tion enables you to take pho­tos dur­ing fam­i­ly activ­i­ties indoors that in the film era would have been hope­less­ly blurred with­out a flash. So turn on all the lights, hold your phone steady, and have fun shooting.