David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Use Stabilization

The biggest breakthrough in digital photography in the past few years was the invention of image stabilization. These systems work in several different ways, but the good ones—mechanical stabilizers—actually jiggle the sensor around, in real time, 4,000 times per second, to counteract the motion of the camera itself. Hard to believe, but it really works.

Note

There's another kind of stabilization, found in cheap cameras, known as fake stabilization. (That's not what the camera companies call it, but you get the point.) In these cameras, nothing moves; instead, the cameras attempt to eliminate blur by goosing up the ISO, as described on Goose the ISO. It doesn't work very well.

In some SLRs, the stabilization is in the lens itself; the glass is actually vibrating, not the sensor in the camera. But here again, you get far fewer blurry shots. (Remember, though, that no camera stabilizer can do much about moving subjects.)