My 24-105mm lens has image stabilisation, but it doesn’t have the very funky Mode 2 stabilisation, which allows you to do shots like this one I took with my new 100-400mm:
Image stabilisation uses tiny gyroscopes within the lens to detect movement and compensate for it, allowing you to take shots with a much slower shutter speed than you normally could. This might allow you to shoot from a moving vehicle or on a bridge that has people walking on it and shaking your tripod. Or, it could allow you to hand-hold with set a very slow shutter speed such as 1/50sec; this is virtually impossible on all but the shortest lenses.
What Mode 2 does is turn off one of the gyroscopes, so the lens still compensates for up/down motion, but ignores side-to-side movement, allowing you to pan with an object and blur the background. It’s extremely fun to do!
So if your lens doesn’t have mode 2 IS, then how did you take the shot?
I used my 100-400mm lens. I’ll edit the post to make that clear.
Much better!