Originally posted by DSims Yes, I thought the SR was the most interesting part of these patents. In fact, the 35/2.8 macro looks redundant/unnecessary without it.
But is the in-lens SR only because they're macro lenses? I have to admit, I've never sought to determine just how effective the in-body SR is on macro shots, compared to standard lenses. Is there much difference?
Camera shake can have both rotational and translational components.
Three rototional movements are
1) rotation about the camera's horizontal centerline (pointing the camera up and down),
2) rotation about the camera's vertical centerlin (pointing to the right and left),
3) rotation about the lens' centerline (like turning a steering wheel).
Three translational movements (shifting position of the camera without changing direction it is pointed) are
1) moving the camera up and down (without changing direction its pointed at)
2) moving the camera from side to side,
3) moving the camera closer and further from the target
At normal subject distances, rotational movements are most important. A fraction of a degree tilt when you are shooting the house across the street can change the position of the image projected on the sensor significantly. But if you shift the camera to the left by say 1 mm, the shift in the image on the sensor is imperceptible since the scene captured on the sensor is 20,000 mm wide.
At close working distances, translational movements are most important. A shift to the left of 1 mm at 1:1 magnification gives a 1 mm out of 24 mm (width of APSC sensor) shift of the captured image, definitely noticeable.
Pentax shake reduction corrects for rotational movements (correction for the lens centerline rotation movement was introduced with the K-5, I think). Olympus uses 5-axis correction to include the rotational and the first 2 transtlation corrections on some of their cameras. Not sure about Sony. The lens centerline rotation cannot be corrected with lens based systems. As far as I know, no one has correction for the 3rd translational movement.
So to answer your question, the Pentax in-body shake reduction system is not the most effective for macro. However I'm not sure if in-lens correction systems are effective for translational movement either.