VR and low light

[Canadaloon]

Hi,
I'm on the verge of moving to a digital SLR. I've been using a Nikon since I got my FE-1 in 1980. The D90 looks like a good place to start, but the D300 also looks tempting. My Question:

Can VR (1 or 2) compensate for a wider aperture, say a 50mm with either F/1.4 or F/1.8?

My thought is a lens such as the Nikkor AF-S 16-85mm DX Zoom f/3.5-5.6G ED VR would allow those low light shots. The 1.4 is only about 3 stops faster than the zoom at 50mm and you would gain that with the VR2. You would lose the narrow depth of field but it seems light is the main reason for buying wide lenses.

I've had a Panasonic FX7 for a few years now for snap shots and have been amazed at both the handheld zoom AND low-light shots I've been able to get. It seems that VR is thought of mainly as a long lens advantage. Am I missing something or will the VR give me low light capability as well and what will I lose?

Thanx for your help.

Cheers,

Canadaloon

[gstark]

Can VR (1 or 2) compensate for a wider aperture, say a 50mm with either F/1.4 or F/1.8?

Hi, and welcome.

The answer is yes. And no.

You can certainly shoot at slower shutter speeds, which may help compensate in low light situations: I've actually shot, handheld, with the Nikkor 80-400 at a half second shutter speed.

The issue isn't just the shutter speed however. You also ned to factor in such things as subject movement. In the shot I'm referring to, it was looking down from an overpass onto a roadway with cars passing by. The cars were moving, and that is reflected in the image, and that is the outcome I wanted. Clearly this isn;t an issue.

But were I to be shooting a sporting event, say a penalty goal being kicked at the football: take a moment to consider what the outcome might be like for a shot taken of that subject with a half second shutter speed. Probably not quite as desirable an outcome, I would suggest.

You need to remember that VR is only a tool that helps you to maybe avoid using a tripod, and it will do nothing to address any issues of subject movement that you might encounter.

Ultimately, there is no substitute for shooting with an adequate amount of light, and a faster lens may help address issues that VR cannot. In the situation at the football, opening the lens from 5.6 to 1.4 before you need to start slowing down your shutter can mean the difference between a money shot, or a perfectly exposed blur.

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[DaveB]

You need to remember that VR is only a tool that helps you to maybe avoid using a tripod

This is of course a generalisation: VR can help even with shots using a tripod.
Otherwise Gary's points are all valid.

[Murray Foote]

I used a Panasonic FZ50 and now I have a Nikon D3. The FZ50 is 10MP, saves to RAW and goes up to ISO1600, though the image quality of the D3 at 6400ISO is better than that of the FZ50 at 800ISO and probably also at 400ISO. The FX7 had auto ISO up to 400ISO and saved to JPG. The quality you can get from a D90 or a D300 at 3200 ISO is probably equivalent to what you can get with the FX7 at 400ISO and may be better.

So what you might lose if you don't have VR you will get back from being able to shoot at higher ISO. I have found that you usually don't want to go to much below 1/80sec in low light photos of people because or subject movement (note the usually, though, and it's less true with wider lenses). Therefore at 50mm, VR may not make much difference. However, even the 1.5x sensor of the D90 or D3 is much larger than the one on your FX7. One effect of this is much shallower apparent depth of field - so you may find that getting the focus correct is a much more significant factor than whether or not you have VR, particularly the further into telephoto you go. The first step here is reading the camera on the different autofocus modes of the camera and at under 100mm, manual focus may be just as effective.