Help me understand (why no IS on wide lens)

[mikeivan]

To me, the greatest Canon technology advantage is Image Stabilization. What I don't understand is why IS is not available on wider angle lenses. The widest I can find IS would be the 24-105. The widest prime is 300. WTF? I love my 17-55, but it is an EFS lens. How come we don't have a wide EF/IS lens? Am I missing something?? (not unusual). Help me out, thanks

[bacchanal]

Well for one, you can hand hold wide lenses at lower shutter speeds. Another reason is crop factor. The 24-105 is pretty wide on FF, which it was designed for. Also, the smaller primes tend to be pretty fast, so IS isn't needed as much on those lenses. But who knows what the real reason is. It's like asking where are the fast wide lenses for crop bodies...there just isn't demand apparently.

[Curtis N]

A stable camera is much more important with long lenses. With short lenses, the slowest practical shutter speed is more often limited by subject movement than camera movement. In situations where subject movement is not an issue (landscape, architecture, macro, still life, commercial product shots) very often a tripod is a viable option.

For these reasons, image stabilization is not nearly so useful with a short lens, and fewer people will be willing to pay for the extra cost.

[Rumrunner]

I have always thought of it this way. You would have to shake the camera about 10 times the distance (with the shutter open) with a 20mm lens than you would have to with a 200mm lens to get the same amount of camera shake.

[Mark_Cohran]

For handholding the rule of thumb for shutter speed is 1/(focal length x Crop Factor). For wide lenses, this means that you can already get a fairly low shutter speed without IS, so it's really not economically feasible on wide lenses.

Mark

[rklepper]

I am sure that eventually we will see these lenses with IS. I personally am saving up for the EF 10-24 IS (f/4 or f/2.8, not pickey which one.).

[Pasukun]

The beauty of IS for the wide angle shot..
I can shoot 1/3 of sec with 17mm.
And about 1/10 of sec with 55mm.
My 70-200 f/4 IS is on the way.., but I bet I can shoot 1/50 of sec with 200mm with ease.
Without IS.. I need about 1/200 of sec.

[Wilt]

To me, the greatest Canon technology advantage is Image Stabilization. What I don't understand is why IS is not available on wider angle lenses. The widest I can find IS would be the 24-105. The widest prime is 300. WTF? I love my 17-55, but it is an EFS lens. How come we don't have a wide EF/IS lens? Am I missing something?? (not unusual). Help me out, thanks

On a FF camera, 24 is 'wide'. It might not be 'super wide', but no veteran of 35mm film would hesitate to call 24mm lens 'wide'!!!

The fact that 24-105 is available for FF camera shows that Canon does consider IS a 'wide' feature...witness the 17mm-55mm of the EFS mount. The fact that 24-70mm is not IS is merely a reflection of the fact that it has been around for a while, and Canon has its priorities set for which lens FL needs IS first.

--wilt