[brosen]

Most of the time I use Prime or Standard Lenses with my camera (they are faster and better for low light conditions), like 35mm, 50mm, etc.

Most of the major brands, like Nikon and Canon, Vibration Reduction will not be included in Prime Lenses, only on Zoom Lenses, so for "Low Light" situations with Prime/Standard lenses there are not to many options to avoid "blur" with those brands.

But the Pentax K-7 with in body Vibration Reduction (VR), and the Pentax DA 21mm f/3.2 and the Sigma EX 30mm f/1.4 prime lenses the combination is perfect, very sharp shoots and beautiful images.

[eva2000]

Yeah in body image stabilisation + prime lens is always lovely. Love my combinations (in sig)

[WMBP]

I agree that the in-body shake reduction we have in our Pentax cameras is a great thing.

But the shorter the focal length, the less shake reduction (or VR, or IS or whatever you call it) matters for most photographers. Remember the old rule that, to minimize the effects of camera shake when the camera's not on a tripod, your shutter speed should be no slower than the reciprocal of the focal length. In other words, if you're shooting at 50mm, then you should not use a shutter slower than 1/50th sec, and if you're shooting at 35mm, you should not shoot slower than 1/35th sec. Well, think about it. How often do you shoot slower than 1/35th sec? Not very often. Why? Because when you get slower than about 1/60th sec, you have to worry about your subject moving. At weddings, during moments when the bride and groom are standing quite still, I do pretty often shoot handheld at speeds around 1/30th sec, and I'm very glad to have shake reduction in my camera when I do. But this is a somewhat special case. Outside of the church, I could probably live without shake reduction of any kind an awful lot of the time.

The lack of in-body shake reduction is not apparently making it difficult for Nikon and Canon to sell cameras. I'm glad to have SR in my Pentax cameras. But most of the time, it's not a game changer.

Will

[Rondec]

The 1/focal length equation seems to me to break down at wider angles. I don't care what anyone says. It isn't easy to hand hold for 1/16 of a second, even if you are shooting at 16 mm (depending on the situation). Obviously SR is much more useful for static things anyway, so talking about it in terms of shooting moving objects is not worthwhile. That's why an awful lot of high end wedding photographers shoot full frame -- its really helpful to be able to shoot at iso 6400 in that situation.

[WMBP]

The 1/focal length equation seems to me to break down at wider angles. I don't care what anyone says. It isn't easy to hand hold for 1/16 of a second, even if you are shooting at 16 mm (depending on the situation).

I think you've misunderstood the guideline. The guideline - that you should not use a shutter speed that's slower than 1/focal length - is a guideline intended simply to limit your shutter speed. It's designed to advise the photographer shooting at, say, 200mm, NOT to use a shutter speed slower than 1/200th sec. The guideline is NOT intended to say that it is a good idea to use any shutter speed that is faster than 1/focal length!!

There is an absolute limit to how slow the shutter speed can get if you're holding the camera in your hands. I don't mean to invite disagreement ("I can do better!") but it's somewhere in the vicinity of 1/30th sec or 1/20th sec, and that's WITH shake reduction. And for many photographers, even 1/30th sec may be too slow, even if the shutter speed is very wide. So even if you're shooting a building on a calm day, at a focal length of, say, 18mm, you're not going to want to go slower than 1/30th sec, unless you're a Man of Steel.

And if you're shooting people or animals or flowers blowing in the breeze - anything that moves - then you have to worry about subject movement, and that provides a further constraint on how slow your shutter speed can go.

TO restate what I said earlier: What this means in the present context is, at wider focal lengths, shake reduction becomes less valuable. If you have good technique, you do not really need shake reduction in your lens or camera to take a decent shot with a focal length of, say, 28mm and a shutter speed of 1/60th sec. If you have really good technique, you might be able to go down to 1/30th sec - assuming that the subject isn't moving. Since an awful lot of the prime lenses for other brands of camera (as for Pentax) are for focal lengths less than 80mm, the need for VR or IS in those lenses is less urgent than a Pentax shooter might think.

Or to put it differently: shake reduction does more for us Pentax photographers when we're shooting at 200mm than it does when we're shooting at 20mm, at least most of the time.

Obviously SR is much more useful for static things anyway, so talking about it in terms of shooting moving objects is not worthwhile.

You lost me there. There are THREE ways for an image to be blurred: 1, camera's out of focus; 2, subject is moving and the shutter speed is too slow to stop the subject's movement; and 3, the camera is moving (and the shutter speed is too slow and/or shake reduction is inadequate to counteract the movement). It's possible for an image to be damaged by all three of these problems at the same time. Not all subject movement requires speeds of 1/500th sec! A toddler taking its first steps might be photographed at 1/60th sec. If you're shooting from across the room with a 70mm lens, you'll benefit from shake reduction. Moving does not have to mean "moving fast." When I'm shooting a wedding ceremony and I'm locked on the bride's face at 1/30th sec, I'm really hoping she doesn't turn her head just at the moment I click the shutter.

Will

[Ash]

What complicates things in getting good results with slower shutter speeds (even at wide angles) is trying to capture landscapes where there is wind about, moving trees and blades of grass about. While 1/30secs is handholdable from a camera shake point of view, it's slow enough to generate detectable motion blur in the landscape, whether on a tripod or not.