I was looking closely at some pictures I took with my 80-400mm VR on Sunday and felt that the sharpness was not quite there. I had taken the pictures (of birds) from a hide (blind for my American readers ) with the camera resting on a bean bag propped firmly in the corner of the hide window. My question for the experts is should I have switched VR off in that situation as I would if it had been mounted on a tripod? I am going to do some experiments but would like some advice. Thanks.
Probably not. The situation would be beneficial for VR use. However, sometimes the VR needs time to lock to the residual movements of the camera. Your being in a blind might hide this fact to make the VR blind-folded As a general rule, I suggest VR be switched off when any VR lens is mounted on a tripod, despite any claims from the manufacturer that VR won't interfere with image sharpness. If the tripod happens to be a monopod, VR probably wont' do any harm and in fact occasionally mighr even improve sharpness.
