The Battle of Sony Stabilization: IBIS Versus EIS Versus Gimbal

Unless you're filming horror, shaky footage is almost always highly undesirable. Now, however, you have lots of ways you can create dynamic shots and keep the visuals steady, so which is the best one?

When it comes to photography, the humble tripod serves its purpose well unless you need to be handheld, and then IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) takes over. But, what about video? How does IBIS hold up and can it compare to gimbals and the new EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) technology? Arthur R takes a look.

One area of photography that has been particularly fast-moving when it comes to improvements is stabilization. While IBIS and EIS systems are now better than ever, the number of camera bodies and the prices of those bodies are lower and more attainable too. Similarly, gimbals have gone from being high-end cinema equipment to something you can buy for $100 for your mobile phone. And they're far from cheap rubbish. Last year I reviewed a Zhiyun mobile phone gimbal and was thoroughly impressed!

In this video, Arthur R compares IBIS, EIS, and a gimbal for video stabilization and there are a few surprising results! The biggest takeaway for me is that EIS will surely be commonplace in Sony cameras over the next 5 years.

Rob Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

Log in or register to post comments
2 Comments

Dropping IBIS (which he seems to imply) will not be good for mostly still photographers. Cropping, and small amounts of motion blur in a video frame is acceptable. If you do stills at all, that seems like a non starter.

It would be cool if the camera could do the EIS in camera like a gopro 10. Because it's an extra step you might as well run the 6600 footage through a warp stabilizer filter and compare it that way.