Canon announced today the development of Hybrid Image Stabilizer (IS), the world’s first optical image stabilization technology that compensates for both angle camera shake and shift camera shake. Canon’s newly developed Hybrid IS technology optimally compensates for angle and shift camera shake. The new Hybrid IS technology incorporates an angular velocity sensor that detects the extent of angle-based shaking and is found in all previous Canon optical image stabilizer mechanisms, as well as a new acceleration sensor that determines the amount of shift-based camera shake. Hybrid IS also employs a newly developed algorithm that synthesizes information from the two sensors to make optimal adjustments, thereby dramatically enhancing the effects of image stabilization during shooting, including macro shooting, which had proven difficult for conventional image stabilization technologies.
Canon began researching methods to compensate for camera shake in the 1980s, and in 1995 launched the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, the world’s first interchangeable SLR camera lens to feature a mechanism that compensates for optical camera shake. The new technology will be featured in Canon interchangeable single lens reflex (SLR) camera lens planned for commercial release before the end of 2009.
