Optical vs Digital Image Stabilization

It will help a lot with videos and pictures. With pictures, the biggest difference will be noticeable in low light (with relatively slow shutter speeds), for ex. it will compensate for shaky hands etc. It can't do much if your subject is moving though (in anything but very good light), because shutter speed will just be too slow to freeze motion (you'll need a xenon flash under low light for that).

 

It works on both video and still images. It won't help a lot on fast-moving subjects. Some, but not a lot. Digital image stabilization simply doesn't let you take the picture until your hands are still. Not real helpful. Optical stabilization moves the lens to counteract hand shake. Very helpful.

 

Optical image stabilization is the better solution on paper. Digital IS is done by zooming into the picture a bit so the software has "wiggle room" so it can use the hidden edges of the image to use to keep the onscreen image stable. I may be wrong but I believe this is the reason that the iPhone video recorder has a narrower field of view than when taking a picture.

Optical IS is done in the lens so that software doesn't need to compensate with any hidden area.

So, all things equal, OIS is the better solution. Unfortunately, the choice is not whether we want DIS or OIS, it's 4.7" vs 5.5" phone.