Readers Write: Pentax WG-1: Stabilised Or Not?

Here's an e-mail we received:

Subject: WG 1 You say in the test that this camera has no stabilisation, but whenever I see it for sale online it has 'electronic stabilisation'? Thanks,

Hello,

We guess you're talking about the Pentax Optio WG-1 camera which we tested in June.

It does indeed have electronic stabilisation, a system that's designed to reduce the blur caused by moving the camera.  For some manufacturers, it works by increasing the sensitivity for certain shots, while others actively try to anticipate blur by detecting motion.

The problem is that up until now, none of these various approaches have ever come anywhere close to rivalling a 'real' stabilisation system based on cancelling out the camera's movements, whether that's by moving the lens around inside the mount or by adjusting the position of the sensor accordingly.

We always tell you whether a camera has mechanical or electronic stabilisation, but until we see a big improvement in the quality of electronic systems like the one here, we don't see any problem with saying that there's 'no stabilisation'.

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