Turn off VR when using a tripod and exposures longer than about a second - initial data

This post shows the results with the VR on. Everything else is identical.

The effect is obvious: There is a secondary image displaced to the left and down from the primary image. It looks somewhere during the 10 sec exposure, the lenses in the VR system of this lens finally decided that they really didn't know what to do, so they just drifted off towards the maximum compensation values in the SW direction, and then stayed there for the remainder of the exposure.

Obviously, other VR I lenses, and especially the newer VR II system will likely behave differently, so this test doesn't speak to them. However, it would be very interesting to know if the benefits of turning off the VR system are present at shorter exposures, say 1/10th and shorter, ie, exposures you might consider taking without using a tripod. If I get around to it, I'll do some more tests at shorter exposures.

The results of my little quick and dirty test caused me to wonder about the reports of absolutely terrible optical quality of the 24-120 VR lens. It seems like the reports about this lens are much more polarized than I would expect, some people love it, some think it's cr*p, with few people in the middle. Since the people concerned about lens sharpness are most likely to use a tripod, I started wondering if at least some of the very negative reports about sharpness with this lens might have arisen because some of the folks doing tripod mounted tests with this lens may have simply forgotten to turn off the VR system during their tests.

In any case, the bottom line is: Don't forget to turn off VR when tripod mounted ... or at least take a couple of exposures, one with it on, and one with it off to get a feeling for when it stops helping and starts degrading the performance of your lens.

Cheers,

Tom M

PS - Don't worry, the tripod wasn't bumped during the second exposure. I repeated the test several times, getting the same result each time.

I don't see the second image.

Tom, may I ask how many test samples did you try for VR on and VR off? For example, if you tried 5 times with VR on, did you consistently get such blurry results all 5 times?

While I don't have the 24-120mm VR lens, intentionally or unintentionally, I have used the 200-400mm/f4 AF-S VR on a tripod with VR on, and I have never had such serious problems.

Shun, I realized this was an obvious question that I did not address. I repeated the test three times (and inserted a PS to my 2nd post to address this).

Tom M

Shun, were you looking for the effect in exposures in the 1- 10 second range? I'm forming a suspicion that the VR system (especially in early VR lenses like the 24-120 VR) can hang in there for a good fraction of a second, but then gives up and rapidly drifts off to its maximum compensation values in each direction. Thus, if your exposure is shorter than say, a half second, you won't see the effect because it hasn't drifted off yet. OTOH, if the total exposure time is much longer than say 10 seconds, the fraction of the exposure time that the VR system is at one of its limits will also decrease. You will note that my secondary image is considerably weaker than the primary image, and there is not a continuous blur or streaking of the image between the two positions.

Obviously, it would be great if someone else could confirm my test results on this lens (... or others).

Cheers,

Tom M

One more reason to trade in my 24-120, but, just for laughs 'n giggles, I'm going out to take a few h/h with the VR O-F-F and O-N. I improved it a little bit with manual focus, but didn't think to flip off the VR.
This is good info. Thanks for posting!!!!

VR is not a target-sensing feedback system, rather a single axis tilt sensing system regardless of target location. As such, it can only make moment-to-moment corrections based on its previously sensed position about the lens' rotational axis.

A more sophisticated VR system would be target-sensing with dual axis compensation which I imagine will be the future.

Tom, plenty of Canon IS and Nikon VR super tele users intentionally switch on VR (or IS) to help stabilize their long lens on a tripod at 1/60 sec, 1/30 sec. They report that it makes a noticable improvment.

If you are only talking about 1 to 10 seconds time exposure, I think you should clarify that in the subject. I have no idea about how VR should behave under such long exposures. But the current title for this thread does not specify time exposure. As a moderator, I can update the subject.

Assuming that Tom had his tripod's head locked, then both his and Shun's experiences are consistent with Nikon's instructions:

(link)

My own experience of once unintentionally leaving VR enabled on my 70-200 while on a locked tripod is consistent too (blurry photos until I noticed and then disabled VR).