Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:22 pm
IMO, it depends on the lens and what you're shooting. I don't think it would make much of a difference for taking photos of people or other moving subjects (incl. trees on a breezy day) at the focal length you're using right now. By indoors or low light I'm going to assume that the available lighting is necessitating longer exposure times (for your set aperture and ISO) which is resulting in blur.
At 55mm on a crop sensor, you're at ~85mm. With good technique for a handheld shot, you're "wanting" at least 1/125th of a second (1/60th being too slow and going with full-stop adjustments). At 18mm you're "wanting" 1/30th of a second exposure.
Throw IS in there and sure, you might take photos up to 2-3 stops slower (1/15th sec at 55mm and 1/2 sec at 18mm), but unless your subject matter is very still you're going to get motion blur anyway.
Open up your aperture and/or jack up your ISO to compensate for the low-light. "Noisy" photos aren't as desirable but I'd rather have sharp and noisy than blurry and noise-free.
At 55mm on a crop sensor, you're at ~85mm. With good technique for a handheld shot, you're "wanting" at least 1/125th of a second (1/60th being too slow and going with full-stop adjustments). At 18mm you're "wanting" 1/30th of a second exposure.
Throw IS in there and sure, you might take photos up to 2-3 stops slower (1/15th sec at 55mm and 1/2 sec at 18mm), but unless your subject matter is very still you're going to get motion blur anyway.
Open up your aperture and/or jack up your ISO to compensate for the low-light. "Noisy" photos aren't as desirable but I'd rather have sharp and noisy than blurry and noise-free.