This is why Canon didn’t put IBIS in the EOS R mirrorless camera

There have been a lot of complaints about the Canon EOS R mirrorless camera. It only has one card slot, it crops when shooting 4K video, and there’s no IBIS. “WTF Canon?” the collective Internet proclaimed. Well, Canon has now responded to at least one of those issues.

That issue is the lack of IBIS. Digital Camera World spoke to Canon UK’s product intelligence consultant, David Parry to find out the answer. And, essentially, having stabilisation in the body isn’t as good as having it in the lens.

David told DCW…

With an in-body IS system you are creating something that needs to work over lots of different types of lenses and different lens groups, so you don’t get a dedicated system for that particular lens.

All lenses move in different ways, and you get different types of shake depending on what kind of lens you’re using, so dedicating the IS system to the particular lens is, for us, the optimum way of doing it – but that’s not to say that we aren’t looking at in-body IS.

– David Parry, Product Intelligence Consultant, Canon UK

I’ve spoken to David before myself. I interviewed him earlier this year about the EOS M50 and Canon’s new concept cameras at The Photography Show. He’s a smart fella who generally knows what he’s talking about.

I tend to agree with what he says here. I heard the same arguments years ago when DSLRs started to get IBIS (hi, Minolta!). And it’s true, the sensor can only compensate so much. Although IBIS technology has come a long way since those early days, it’s still not perfect. Stabilisation in the lens is optimised for that specific lens. Stabilisation on the sensor really has no clue what lens you might want to use.

That being said, it still seems a little odd that it’s not included, though. Sony has it, the Nikon Z6 & Z7 have it, even Fuji’s new GFX 100S will have it. Surely, even if it is better to have it in the lens, having the option to stabilise at the sensor is better than having nothing for those lenses that don’t?

David does suggest that it might be coming in a future model. So, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully, they’ll figure out how to shoot 4K UHD without having to crop by then, too.

[via Digital Camera World]