Panasonic"s Digital Camera Corrects Camera Shake Along 6 Axis

Panasonic Corp will release an interchangeable lens camera equipped with a system that corrects camera shake along six axes Aug 20, 2015.

The system, "Dual IS," corrects camera shake by combining the "image stabilization in the body (BIS)," which widely corrects large angle changes and translational shake from right to left or up and down, and "image stabilization in the lens (OIS)," which corrects small angle changes. It is suited for shooting pictures in a dark place and taking telescopic images, which are likely to cause camera shake.

This is the world"s first system that stabilizes images along the four axes (yaw, pitch and x and y axes) corrected by the BIS and the two axes (yaw and pitch) corrected by the OIS, Panasonic said.

When the new camera, "Lumix GX8," is released, there will be six OIS lenses that support the Dual IS. But almost all OIS lenses are scheduled to become compatible with the Dual IS through firmware updates.

Panasonic also added "4k Focus Select" as a new function of "4k Photo," which extracts 4k images from 4k video taken by the camera. It enables to shoot images while shifting the focus from the near side to the far side with the 4K Photo so that a picture with a desired focus can be selected after the shooting. This function will not be available at the point of the release of the product but will be added through a firmware update in the future.

The price of the "DMC-GX8" (only the main body) is about ¥145,000 (approx US$1,168, excluding tax), and that of the "DMC - GX8H" (the main body and a high-magnification zoom lens kit) is about ¥180,000 (excluding tax).