Shake Reduction On or Off for Panning Birds in Flight?

[PinonMesaJon]

What are your experiences/opinions: Should shake reduction be turned on or off while panning birds in flight?

[interested_observer]

I have the K100 and do use the shake reduction all the time, however not for tracking objects. Pentax claims x, y and rotational dampening around z. I have done a lot of embedded GNC software (Guidance, Navigation and Control), and in order to really know for sure, you would need to understand a lot about the positioning sensors, their sampling rate along with how the data is processed. The system measures and attempts to counter the motion of the camera body, not the object being viewed through the lens.

That being said, the system is essentially designed to dapen out high frequency movements (sitting on a lawn mower or dryer), as opposed to movements associated with tracking something smoothly. A prime example would be using a 300mm lens and trying to shoot something a mile away. You would probably be bobbing all over the place (when viewing the object through the lens). This is what it is intended to do very well (however, you can over saturate the system with very large movements and defeat the system). Tracking would negate the z axis rotational component. However the x and y dampening should still work. From what I have read, each of the axis are isolated, so they all work independently of each other.

Bottom line, it would vary from situation to situation, give it a try and see what happens. For instance, if you were very cold and shivering, but smoothly tracking from left to right, the x and y sensors would probably dampen out your jittery up/down shivering motion, as you are panning or tracking the object.

Hope that helps...

[sgarthee]

I have made many attempts at aircraft both with the SR on and off. I really cannot see a lot of difference but I also try to keep a high shutter speed. If aircraft apply to BIF, it does not seem to matter to me but your results may vary.

[Black Knight]

I have to agree with the others. I do a fair amount of Auto racing Shots and Some Airshows. I have Not noticed any difference Either way.

Phil

[PinonMesaJon]

Thanks i_o,

I've worked on flight simulation S/W for commercial aircraft, so I have a rather technical comprehension of the points you're making. Makes sense......

You said that you tend to turn SR off for tracking objects yourself, though. Have you had bad experiences with it on, regardless of the points you've made?

[PinonMesaJon]

Thanks also, sgarthee and Black Knight,

I've had trouble discerning the difference myself. Hence, why I was asking for other personal experiences.

I guess, if you pan smoothly enough, you'd tend to get good results with it on.

[danielchtong]

PinonMesaJon wrote:

What are your experiences/opinions: Should shake reduction be turned on or off while panning birds in flight?

That is my experience but I did not do any comparison at all. But immidiately after I have switched off the SR and have an 120X card, my keeper rates took off the last 2 months for all my BIF works with my A300mmF4.

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...811569#p811569

Well that can be tested and worked out. But a bigger problem is ahead of you. When you do bif say a bird flying from left to right, it is 1 / 1 million chance that the bird flies exactly equal distance from your lens (all the way from left to right). You need to track that with the focus either with AF or manual . As you have to use long lens (say 300 or 400mm) , your DoF will be little. If I am correct, with AF and your K10D , you only have 1 shot at one distance with adjusting the focus ring . By the time you K10D has the subject in autofocus and ready to fire again, the bird is gone. That is it.

I am still fine-tuning my manual method of panning and focusing at the same time.

I am no expert. If there is no proof that SR works for panning, let the camera use the resource in focusing and bursting.

Daniel, Toronto

[PinonMesaJon]

Thanks Daniel,

Yeah, panning with my manual focus is quite a sport in itself!

danielchtong wrote:

If I am correct, with AF and your K10D , you only have 1 shot at one distance with adjusting the focus ring . By the time you K10D has the subject in autofocus and ready to fire again, the bird is gone. That is it.

-- The K10D does a pretty good job in it's continual focus mode.

[PinonMesaJon]

Daniel,

Regarding the link you sent to your BIF shots......

First of all, fantastic shots!

That's a pretty high ISO setting you're using there (800, I saw on a few). Are you shooting in RAW mode and postprocessing? Or if not in RAW, you must be using some noise reduction S/W to get the noise out. If so, what are you using?

[PinonMesaJon]

And back to my original topic, did you have SR on or off on your posted shots, Daniel?