Canon's Image Stabilization In Action

This photo has zero, no processing, this is a straight screen capture. You can see Canon's optical image stabilization in action. As you can see from the box, both photos were taken at 1/50sec on a 70-200L f/4 IS at 187mm. Canon, just like Nikon, has the image stabilization in the lens while Olympus, Pentax and Sony do it in the body on the sensor. The image stabilization relies on sensors that analyze the movement and apply corrections by shifting the stabilizing lens group so that the image is parallel to the focal plane. This reduces or cancel the motion blur.

The official way that it works is:

The image stabilization achieves three shutter speed steps of camera shake correction within 0.5 seconds after the shutter button is depressed halfway and yields correction for up to four full shutter speeds while handheld…

— Canon Press Release

Focus, shoot, focus, shoot... The first exposure is less than a ½ second. The second exposure is at between ½ and 1 second.

The Image Stabilization is not a binary thing as ON or OFF. The IS a progressive thing, it takes time to learn. The brighter and the more contrasty the light, the faster the image stabilization learns. The best is after 2 seconds of engaging the Image Stabilization.