Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Just curious to see how many stops stabilization others get from a monopod. I never tested my self before and compared to my handheld, so I checked it out tonight. It would appear that I get 2 stops advantage over handheld without much practice at it. Just wondering what is reasonable to strive for.

I use a monopod more for back stress relief on longer days.

I have never tested it but my understanding is that it provides about 2 stops of stabilization.

I posted this question on a dpreview forum and was asked how I did this and thought it was worth while reposting my answer here.

Simple

I confirmed my handheld abilty with IS turned off. I just zoomed in on the image play back of a photo taken of text on my laptop screen. with IS off the image is crisp at a shutter speed of 1/(35mm equiv fl) and deteriorates below that. So my handheld is rule of thumb steady. I then reshot with the mono pod and I can do 4 times (2 stops) slower.

This similar to a test I once saw where you photographed a newspaper hanging on a wall.

That would be zooming in to 7 times magnification so with the size of the lcd on the e-pl1, that would be 11x14 ish print size. So if the standard is for 8x10 ish like dof then I guess I am a titch better than rule of thumb.