Better still

Japanese camera-maker Canon has developed what it claims to be the world's first optical image stabilisation technology that compensates for both angle camera shake and shift camera shake.

Several different preventative methods and corrective procedures have been introduced to compensate for errors caused by camera shake, which occurs when a camera moves while its shutter is open and its image sensor is exposed to light.

Canon began researching methods to compensate for camera shake in the 1980s, and in 1995 launched the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, an interchangeable SLR camera lens with a mechanism that compensates for optical camera shake.

Since then, the company has continued to produce a variety of interchangeable lenses with image stabilisation capabilities, and boasts a total of 21 such lenses in its current product line-up.

Canon's newly developed Hybrid Image Stabilizer (IS) technology optimally compensates for both angle and shift camera shake. Sudden changes in camera angle can significantly alter images taken during standard shooting, whereas shift-based shaking, which occurs when a camera moves parallel to the imaging scene, is more pronounced in close-range shooting.

The new Hybrid IS technology incorporates an angular velocity sensor that detects the extent of angle-based shaking as well as a new acceleration sensor that determines the amount of shift-based camera shake.

Hybrid IS also employs a newly developed algorithm that synthesises information from the two sensors to make optimal adjustments, thereby enhancing the effects of image stabilisation during shooting, including macro shooting, which had proven difficult for conventional image stabilisation technologies.