Sony Admits A1 IBIS Hobbled, Working to Fix

Sony’s new flagship A1 camera appears to take seven or eight seconds before the IBIS kicks in, and will require that delay time each time the camera is significantly repositioned. The capacity to jump right back into effective stabilization depends on whether the camera has been moved between shots.

The issue wouldn’t be as apparent to wildlife photographers working off gimbal mount or product photographers working off a tripod, but for event photographers, or your average run-and-gun amateur, this would be maddening.

Sony’s IBIS system was considered long-in-the-tooth for some time prior to the A1’s release, providing an effective 2 stops of stabilization, well below competitors’ effective stabilization. The A1 saw a significant stabilization boost with a new system, but this spooling up delay appears to have been noticed only in the past few weeks.

Wedding photographer Jamieson Dean complained to Sony, which replaced his A1 with another body that had the same problem. Two weeks ago, Sony updated Dean to indicate that A1 engineers were working on the problem, and that they recognized it as a valid issue.

The problem is reminiscent of the Canon R5 IBIS issue, where some owners report that the IBIS provides a “twist” visible soon after spinning up, and at certain slower shutter speeds. Camnostic’s own tests seemed to indicate that this was due to “heavy shutter finger syndrome” rather than an IBIS issue, but this assessment has proven controversial.