Canon Australia has announced a technology breakthrough with the development of a Hybrid Image Stabiliser (IS), the world’s first* optical image stabilisation technology that compensates for both angle camera shake and shift camera shake. The technology will be featured in an interchangeable single lens reflex (SLR) camera lens planned for commercial release before the end of 2009.
Canon’s newly developed Hybrid IS technology optimally compensates for angle and shift camera shake, ensuring that users can capture a clear shot in any shooting conditions. 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 macro photography and other close-range shooting.
The new Hybrid IS technology incorporates an angular velocity sensor that detects the extent of angle-based shaking and is found in all previous optical image stabiliser mechanisms, as well as a new acceleration sensor that determines the amount of shift-based camera shake. Canon’s Hybrid IS technology also employs a newly developed algorithm that synthesises information from the two sensors to make optimal adjustments, thereby dramatically enhancing the effects of image stabilisation during shooting, including macro shooting, meaning that up-close shots are crisp and clear.
Canon is actively engaged in ongoing research and development of interchangeable SLR camera lenses incorporating Hybrid IS technology, and is aiming for the early commercialisation and inclusion of the lenses in a wide range of products.
