Patent: Further breakdown of Canon’s upcoming IBIS technology

Serious Question: Can someone please explain why they care about IBIS?

Video: It makes sense if you shoot video, as a lens-based stabilization system is designed to work only when the shutter button is pressed and not continuously.
Old or Cheap Lenses: For those who don't want to pay to have stabilization in their lenses or have lenses that don't come with stabilization.

So many people talk as thought it is a "must have" and I'm trying to figure out why.

For context, I am primarily a stills shooter. About half of my work is sports, and about half of my hobby shooting is birds in flight. No point in stabilization in those cases.
Most of my other work and hobby shooting involves people, often at events with limited light. With today's stabilized lenses, I can hand hold the camera and lens down to the point where motion blur from the subject is going to be a bigger detriment than shutter speed. So, no point in additional stabilization in those cases.

What am I missing?
This is not to be snarky but here is a good reason. RF 28–70mm F2 L USM.
 
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Whilst I can appreciate the "I don't need it, so it's no big deal" replies - I feel the same about video (especially 4k) - most of the responses seem to concentrate on the usefulness of IS for non-IS lenses, which is what I'd assumed would be the big feature when I had the Panasonic S1R for a few weeks.

It turned out the sensor IS was indeed very nice for all kinds of shots that I might have taken hand held, so yes please if done well. However for most of my paid work I'm using a tripod and the real eye opener was the quality you could get from a 35mm sensor at 187MP. A Canon 75MP EOS R with multi-shot would give ~300MP shots.

Now that's going to fall into the "who needs it" category for many ;-)

Note: If it does appear, expect Canon to go really big on promoting it, and some forums to be filled with comments bemoaning the need for a new computer, more disks, more cards etc. Oh, and lots of ill-informed armchair expertise about 'out-resolving lenses' and similar things - just like they have been since digital started to take off ;-) ;-)
 
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Photo Hack

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So many responses that missed the point of my question -- which was not about the benefits of stabilization, but the benefit of in-body versus in-lens.

Photo Hack: Your response is not clear.Maybe you are referring to the feature that Stevelee references.

Lens IS does, in fact, work for video and not just still photography. Here's a clue - your shutter release has nothing to do with activating stabilization. For stills, I use the AF-ON button for focusing and when I press that button, stabilization begins. It also will continue stabilizing if I am holding it down in AI Servo.

Hand hold a camera while shooting video and see the difference when you flip IS on or off. You'll also notice many lenses will have different IS modes or settings. There's a reason for this as there's more than one way IS can stabilize and they're meant for different video or photographic purposes.
 
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Photo Hack

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Absolutely not true.
Meanwhile, Canon is having a party that the others will probably NEVER join. I’m sure everyone can come up with a nice list of exclusive things only Canon has over their competition.

Late to the party comments seem a little short sighted when you see innovation firsts from Canon spanning decades.....especially when you consider the unstable and bug ridden products that have been pushing the limits and gathering a cult following of fan boys.

Shortsighted and unreliable innovation isn’t exactly Canons game.
 
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Photo Hack

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Meanwhile, Canon is having a party that the others will probably NEVER join. I’m sure everyone can come up with a nice list of exclusive things only Canon has over their competition.

Late to the party comments seem a little short sighted when you see innovation firsts from Canon spanning decades.....especially when you consider the unstable and bug ridden products that have been pushing the limits and gathering a cult following of fan boys.

Shortsighted and unreliable innovation isn’t exactly Canons game.
That’s also not to discount the fact Nikon and Canon are late to FF mirrorless. I don’t work at Canon and don’t have any insider info, but I’m willing to guess both had been working on it for a while but never took Sony seriously, or anticipated what they were capable of doing....maybe they were disconnected from the market as well?

It’s like having a civilized feud between two big families for years and a roudy, break the rules, family moves in and decides they’re going to take any risk to get on top...even at the cost of long term gain.
 
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Ozarker

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That’s also not to discount the fact Nikon and Canon are late to FF mirrorless. I don’t work at Canon and don’t have any insider info, but I’m willing to guess both had been working on it for a while but never took Sony seriously, or anticipated what they were capable of doing....maybe they were disconnected from the market as well?

It’s like having a civilized feud between two big families for years and a roudy, break the rules, family moves in and decides they’re going to take any risk to get on top...even at the cost of long term gain.
Well, late is subjective. One company doing something doesn't mean another is immediately obligated to make such a product. Personally, I think it is best Canon makes/made sure that they have a reliable product and not rush some bug filled contraption to market. It doesn't seem their entry date into the market has hurt Canon. Just as you say above, there are plenty of things Canon has developed that Sony hasn't touched yet. Neither has Nikon. That's just the way things work. Sony is late to the FF mirrorless DPAF market. ;) That was a tongue in cheek remark
 
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unfocused

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...I don’t work at Canon and don’t have any insider info, but I’m willing to guess both had been working on it for a while but never took Sony seriously, or anticipated what they were capable of doing...

I can't imagine that Canon did not take Sony seriously or did not anticipate what they were capable of. It looks to me like Canon was assessing the market to determine the best strategy and timing. Based on the gains in market share that Canon has captured since their entry into mirrorless, their strategy seems to be working.
 
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Whilst this is possible with stabilized lenses they are generally more expensive and generally it seems primes are unstabilized - whether thy be from Canon or anyone else.

Canon has primes w/ IS for all focal lengths except 14mm, 20mm, 50mm, and 135mm, and Tamron has a 45mm prime with VC. Granted, the 85mm f/1.4L IS & 100mm f/2.8L IS are expensive, and the 100mm isn't fast (for a prime).

[My bet is the 14mm & 20mm primes didn't get IS due to being wide, and the later due to lack of popularity.]
 
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The real question is: even with 20/20 hindsight, did Canon lose profits from their MILFF strategy so far? It's not clear to me that even being first to the MILFF party would have made Canon more money. Sony's market share of MILFF is very impressive, but in terms of actual units sold it's not huge, and they've had to pay R&D for a pretty extensive product line to even achieve that.

I figured out that MILFF was the future way back in 2001, so I bet Canon's known it since 1995.

While there are lots of first-mover advantages, there are also second-mover advantages. For a start, Canon doesn't need to educate anyone on the idea that MILFF is a good thing, because Sony's already paid the cost of making that case to the consumer. Now that's Sony's taken the expense of making the case, Canon can free-ride on the resulting demand.
One big question is how well the decision to develop dual pixel technology is playing out for Canon. Canon's entry into mirrorless has been based on the dual pixel technology, and I think that explains much of the timing of Canon's entry into mirrorless. A late mover strategy seems to have played out pretty well for Canon with the M cameras. A big question with the R cameras seems to be what the next generation of Canon FF sensors will look like (and when they will show up). Then there is the question of lenses and what role EF lenses will play, especially while there are still DSLR's around.
 
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Canon has primes w/ IS for all focal lengths except 14mm, 20mm, 50mm, and 135mm, and Tamron has a 45mm prime with VC. Granted, the 85mm f/1.4L IS & 100mm f/2.8L IS are expensive, and the 100mm isn't fast (for a prime).

[My bet is the 14mm & 20mm primes didn't get IS due to being wide, and the later due to lack of popularity.]
I wonder what percentage of all of Canon's lens sales are stabilized zooms in the holy trinity of 16-35, 24-70 or 24-105 and 70-200. The 16-35 and 24-70 f2.8's are not stabilized in this range, but everything else is. There are quite a few unstabilized primes, but I don't know what they add up to in sales. The big Amazon numbers for primes are the ancient cheaper 50's and the 85 f1.8.
 
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Serious Question: Can someone please explain why they care about IBIS?

Video: It makes sense if you shoot video, as a lens-based stabilization system is designed to work only when the shutter button is pressed and not continuously.
Old or Cheap Lenses: For those who don't want to pay to have stabilization in their lenses or have lenses that don't come with stabilization.

So many people talk as thought it is a "must have" and I'm trying to figure out why.

For context, I am primarily a stills shooter. About half of my work is sports, and about half of my hobby shooting is birds in flight. No point in stabilization in those cases.
Most of my other work and hobby shooting involves people, often at events with limited light. With today's stabilized lenses, I can hand hold the camera and lens down to the point where motion blur from the subject is going to be a bigger detriment than shutter speed. So, no point in additional stabilization in those cases.

What am I missing?
You're missing the fact that none of the "premium" RF lenses released to date are stabilized. What's your solution here???
 
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Don Haines

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I wonder how well it would work on long exposures (many seconds or minutes), and how well it would work through an ND filter.... I can see it being a great benefit to still shooting under normal conditions, but when you step off the beaten path I can see it not working so well. (I like functions you can disable)

For video, I see pixel shifting as a better way to stabilize the shot..... and we already have that in several of the latest Canon bodies.
 
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unfocused

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You're missing the fact that none of the "premium" RF lenses released to date are stabilized. What's your solution here???
Well...others have answered your question...but let me add.

The existence of non-stabilized lenses is an argument in favor of stabilization generally, but not an argument in favor of in-body stabilization over in-lens stabilization.

Also, your sample size is so small it is not valid. So far, Canon has announced a grand total of 10 RF lenses. Six of those lenses have IS. One of those includes the IS 24-70 f2.8 zoom, a lens not available with IS in EF mount (from Canon).

Honestly, I've grown a bit tired of this discussion. Several people have raised legitimate benefits, others have completely missed the point. I have the information I needed to make an informed decision. I think others probably do too by now.
 
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