What does that VR switch on your Nikon lens do? What does VR even mean? You are
about to learn all this and a little bit more so don't go away.
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Hi, I'm Barry Callister of Barry Callister Photography, founder and
creator of photographersfreedom.com. Welcome to my channel and thanks for
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photographers, and I'm stocking it out with more and more content every single
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youtube channel here, this channel is all about photography tutorials, Lightroom
and Photoshop tutorials, photography gear reviews and other photography related
things, so if that sounds good to you, please subscribe and ding the notification
bell. Now I would love you to watch 'til the end of the video today because I'm
going to give you some pretty cool hints about VR that are going to help you to
get sharper and better photos. Especially if you're a bird photographer or a
wildlife photographer, so hang around for that. But right now let's get into the
content. Firstly we need to look at what VR actually is. VR stands for Vibration
Reduction. There are two sensors inside of the lens that detect horizontal and
vertical movement. These sensors then send information to a microcomputer
within your camera's body that moves certain parts of the lens to compensate
for the movements, and therefore eliminating the camera shake, and this
gives you a better, sharper photo. But why does it do this? Why do you need it?
Vibration reduction is designed to help you get better photos in low-light
situations. It enables you to use slower shutter
speeds that you normally wouldn't be able to use when hand-holding your
camera because the camera shake your hands create would ruin your photos. It's
also designed to work with stationary subjects - things that are not moving.
So I'm sorry, but it's not going to freeze the motion of your kids playing
soccer, or those beautiful birds as they glide past, fighting in midair. Now
Nickon claims that VR will effectively give you an extra 4.5 stops
of light on some VR lenses. Now when you consider that one stop of light is a
doubling or halving of your shutter speed, that's a pretty significant
improvement! This means that if I was using an AF-P 70 to 300 millimeter lens,
at 300 millimeters with a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second, and I was
finding I wasn't getting a really good exposure. I could switch VR on and
effectively take that photo at 1/30th of a second and it would come
out okay. Seems unbelievable right? Well, with the 18 to 55 millimeter here,
apparently having VR switched on will gain me an extra four stops of light. So
let's test it shall we? Okay, so I've turned off all but one
light here in my studio, and this is giving us a very low light situation as
you can see. I've got my 18 to 55 millimeter lens on the camera here. What
I'm going to do is take a photo of my keyboard on the desk behind me here; my
computer keyboard. Now currently my settings are 1/4 of-a-second, and....What I'm
going to do, is because I'm going to shoot this photo at 55 millimetres...
Effectively to handhold a shot at 55 millimetres, you need a shutter speed of
1/60th of a second or greater to eliminate the camera shake so I'm going
to take a photo at 1/60th of a second to start off with. Now I've got my
ISO at 320. I'll just show you my camera settings here...
So I've got my....excuse me....just come around. I've got my ISO at 320, my
aperture is f5.6, and my shutter speed is 1/60th of a second. And if I
point this down towards the keyboard there, you can see it's very, very
underexposed. So I'll take this shot. I've got my VR switched off if you can
see that, I'm not sure...VR is switched off. So I'll take this shot, and as you can see
that is very very underexposed, and that's not what we want.
So if VR gives us an extra four stops of light, let's see if we can get it. So I
will turn the VR on...So if I go from 1/60th of a second to 1/30th;
that is one stop of light. To 1/15th will be two stops of light, because one
stop is a doubling or halving remember? Three stops of light would be around 1/8th
of a second, and 1/4 of a second will give us our four stops of
light. So these are now my settings. Now to hand hold a photo at 1/4 of a second
at 55 millimeters, you haven't got a hope. And I'll prove this by turning the VR
off and I will take a photo at 1/4 of a second.
And you can see that's not a bad photo, but it's got a fair amount of motion
blur in it. So let's turn our VR on and see if we effectively get our extra four
stops of light. And looking at that photo there, that's pretty good.
That is a usable photo. So four stops of light - Nikon are not kidding! So you
can see from that example that having the VR switched on on your Nikon lens
can actually help you to take photos in low-light situations with shutter
speeds you normally would not be able to use. It really is handy for that. Now for
those tips about VR I promised you if you stuck around. Now my first tip for
using VR is - turn it off! Yep, you heard me - turn it off! Most of the time you will
not need it, especially if you are a bird photographer, or a wildlife photographer.
Having VR switched on while you're tracking a moving animal will cause
vibration in the lens because the VR system will be trying to compensate for
all that movement. This will rob your photos of sharpness, so turn it off. My
second tip is to always turn your VR off when you have your camera on a
tripod. Now I say this for the same reason as the last tip, and it is because
if you have your camera on that tripod and there is any movement whatsoever in
that tripod; and therefore your camera, the VR will be trying to compensate for
that and it will rob your photos of their sharpness. Especially when you are
using really, really long shutter speeds, if you're......like, you're taking photos of
waterfalls and you're getting that nice soft, smokey-looking water shots, you
sometimes are using shutter speeds way longer than one second. If you have your
VR on and there's any movement during that time that the shutter is
open, the VR will be trying to compensate and it will rob those photos
of their sharpness. So turn it off when you're on a tripod. So basically, just
leave your VR turned off, unless you're in a low light situation, hand-holding
your camera and you need that extra little bit of help to use those really
slow shutter speeds. So hopefully you now understand a lot more about VR -
what it is, and when to use it and when not to use it. If you liked this video,
please hit that like button. If you feel like subscribing, hit subscribe and ding the
notification bell so you don't miss any future videos; I have a new video come
out every single week. Now also be sure to go and check out photographersfreedom.com,
it's a fantastic resource, I'm very very proud of it and I
want you to get the most out of it. It is going to be continually improving,
there's new content there all the time. The link's in the video description below.
There are also links in the video description below to other things
you've seen in the video. So I'm Barry Callister of Barry Callister Photography
and photographersfreedom.com. Get out there....take some wicked shots....and I'll
see you soon. [Music]