Photography: Sony's In-Body Image Stabilisation - an accidental test

With in-body stabilisation on.

 

Without in-body stabilisation.

How good is the image stabilisation in Sony's a6600 and a 6700 bodies? I've just found out by accident that it works well. Until this year I didn't have a camera body with stabilisation, just lenses, and hadn't got round to seeing just how slow a shutter speed I could handhold with one.

I took a handheld photograph of my current camera and lens set-up with the Sony a6600 and the Sony E 30mm macro lens, uploaded the image to Lightroom, and was surprised to see it was blurred. A second shot was the same.

Thinking about it I realised I had forgotten two things. First that the 30mm lens isn't stabilised, unlike all my other lenses, and second that I'd switched off stabilisation on the a6600 body as I'd been using it on a tripod. (Sony advises this, I'm not sure it really matters - something else to check).

I switched on Steady Shot (Sony's name for stabilisation), took another image with the same settings and this time it was sharp, handheld at 1/8 second. I'm impressed and pleased with that.

Now I'll have to find out how long a shutter speed I can handhold with a camera and lens that are both stabilised. 

The photo, by the way, was taken for a forthcoming post on my camera gear for long-distance walking.