Why OIS is Better than EIS? | Optical Image Stabilization

The Technology OIS or optical image stabilization is a technology that helps counter-balance the slight physical hand movements. Different companies use different names for their OIS Technology.

For instance, PureView by Nokia, Ultrapixel by HTC, etc. Nokia made the first cell phone optical stabilized sensor built into Nokia Lumia 920.

OIS is more popular in consumer camera devices because it works efficiently even in poor lighting conditions and you won’t see degradation in image resolution as corrections are made before the signal conversion in digital format.

We all know “how a camera system works and how it takes pictures”?

Every Camera has the same working principle that Light enters into the camera through an opening called Aperture which then passes through the lens and falls on a sensor that forms the image.

Now, generally, this process happens very fast. But when there is insufficient light, then your camera takes a little more time than usual to take a picture. And the longer it takes for the camera to take a picture, the higher will be chances of the picture getting blurred, especially when you do not have a tripod in most cases, a blurred picture is an ugly picture.

So, OIS is a technology that reduces the blurring caused by the motion of a camera during exposure.

Obviously, if the shutter speed of your smartphone camera is high, means it opens and closes very quickly, then the camera needs a little bit of time to click it, resulting to reduce the blurry image and when the shutter speed is low, the amount of time the shutter stays open is longer and the amount of blurring due to shaking.

How OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) works?

Mainly, OIS reimburse your image for even of small movement/shake of your hand that gives you an unblurred image.

While taking a photo and your hands move a little at the same moment, then OIS counteracts by shifting the lens element to correct for these shakes but OIS can’t do anything if the blur is caused by your subject moving too fast for your exposure to freezing the action; it only works to counter camera shake.

Likewise, If you have used software like After Effects or Premiere Pro to stabilize your footage, you will know they will move the image around by tracking certain points in the image and following them from frame to frame, trying to reduce or remove the movement of those points.

Read Also What is ISO | How To Choose Better ISO Setting In-Camera

This also results in a loss of area (quality/pixels) of the image, EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) in-camera worked similarly.

While capturing a shot or a video, the phone’s camera software keeps a reference frame in memory for comparison with the successive shots following the first one.

The software then attempts to do what AE or Premiere pro does – moving those reference points around to bring them closer to the same point in the frame.

However, some phones now use gyro-based tracking to compensate for camera shake. This would still work by moving the image around on the sensor but using a physical giro to gather the tracking information.

In other words, there’s no clear-cut answer, and each phone works differently. Added to that, the phone manufacturers aren’t giving too much information away about how their system works exactly. Now the question is why OIS is better than EIS?

Why OIS is Better than EIS?

The main advantage of OIS is that there is no image degradation as necessary compensations are made before an optical signal is fed to the CCD. But the hardware for the mechanical motion of lenses puts a strain on your battery backup and also adds to the weight of the device.

EIS in cameras has become quite popular these days because they are light and less expensive. And with improvement in algorithms used for stabilization image degradation is minimal as well. But at low resolutions and in poor lighting conditions, you might see significant degradation.

With consumer electronic devices which don’t have a very high resolution, like your Smartphone or low-resolution Camcorders, it is a more effective technique and also outperforms EIS in dimly lit areas.

Optical Image Stabilization Smartphones

• Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
• Samsung Galaxy A73 5G
• Vivo V21
• OnePlus 10 Pro
• Vivo iQOO 9 Pro
• Apple iPhone 13
• Realme 9 Pro Plus

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