If you’re looking to know the difference between Optical Image Stabilization and Electronic Image Stabilization I will suggest you read this article that we wrote earlier on the website.
But, if you are looking for a Smartphone and that can allow you to record shake free videos, and you are confused between, whether to go for a smartphone having Optical Image Stabilization or having just the Electronic Image Stabilization would be sufficient, continue reading this article.
Before going further, we have already established our claim at that having Optical Image Stabilization in a smartphone will surely give you the greatest quality video in terms of Stabilization.
If you somehow find yourself in a situation, where you have zeroed in on a smartphone that does not offer Optical Image Stabilization, or you do not have a budget of buying a flagship smartphone, which are the ones that usually have the Optical Image Stabilization feature.
So, I would like to mention that having just the Electronic Image Stabilization in cameras would be sufficient for having shake free videos.
Mostly, the Electronic Image Stabilization in is done from the software side. In most smartphones, gyroscope is used for calculating the number of jerks or shakes a smartphone has while recording a video, the software then tries to stabilize the video.
Gyroscope is found in almost all the mid range 2 flagship smartphones, which means you can get good Electronic Image Stabilization on even a $200 smartphone.
While researching for another article I came across a comment that sums it up pretty accurately about why I Electronic Image Stabilization is sufficient for having good stabilized video.
You would need two sets of gyroscopes, one for the OIS, one inside the OIS assembly to measure how much leftover for the EIS to handle.
That will lead to a bigger camera module (more parts), more battery drain (even on dSLR OIS the battery drain is small but noticeable), and added cost.
Also, as mentioned in the article, OIS is designed for small subtle changes in angle caused by your hand shaking. It is nice because there is no loss of resolution, but you can only compensate for maybe about on tenth of the “deviation” that EIS can.
The problem with traditional EIS is that it is based on computational imaging (the computer analyzes the image after that fact and warps it to what it thinks is the correct counter motion) with a gyroscope, the computer doesn’t need to do fancy image computation as is much more accurate.
This means that you no longer have to spend extra money to buy a flagship smartphone which has got both the Electronic Image Stabilization as well as Optical Image Stabilization.
I have recorded some great videos using the Xiaomi Poco F1 smartphone which only has got Electronic Image Stabilization and I am currently using Asus 6z, which is a flagship smartphone, it doesn’t have an Optical Image Stabilization, but the video stabilization is quite smooth.
