Image improvement

[etaf]

i have used the rope trick on an EOS 5 and a 75-300 zoom and I dont think there was much stress - just stabilising

[Max@Home]

Originally Posted by scoundrel1728

This is a variation of a technique I've heard of before, but the idea of putting a lot of torque on the lens by putting a heavy side load on the lens mount gives me the willies: you risk bending the lens mount this way, messing up your camera body's focus and lens alignment. Repairing a bent lens mount with adequate precision isn't particuarly easy. If you loop the rope around the base of the lens instead to reduce the torque, you then risk forcing fibers of your rope between the flange on the lens and the mounting seat on the body. I don't know what the consequences would be if fibers actually did get between the flange and the seat, but they can't be good for your camera system. For this reason, I recommend the more usual variants of fastening the rope or string to a 1/4" x 20 UNC bolt screwed into your camera's tripod socket instead. Such bolts are readily available in hardware stores in the U.S.; less so in countries with metric hardware. You might also need a couple of jam nuts and washers if you want to get fancy, or you can try to find an eyebolt to loop your string around.

Originally Posted by 2daysoldrndirt

Scoundrel1728, that one scared me as well, since the lens and the mount were not engineered to be significant stress points. Like you I had heard mention of attaching the rope to the tripod mount.

Originally Posted by stef@apl

You're not putting much stress on it. It's just enough to stabilize, probably 2 lbs max. If your hand will be on the other side holding the lens (for larger ones) then there won't be any stress at all.

...as he said

You are not 'pulling' on the rope, just enough stress to stabilise.

And a tripod-mount-screw w/the rope attached would be better, but when travelling (and no screws to be found around) then a rope and a slip-lock knot and around the lens will do

I regularly use a tripod mount that holds the lens itself, supporting the camera and grip by the mount. Camera is a good 2-3 lbs (maybe more... 7D with grip and 2 batteries).

...I do the same, and did so also with an EOS-1 D3 w/ flash attached... 3-4 lbs...

...€0.02...

Kindest regards,

Max@Home

[stef@apl]

Let's call it a cord instead of rope.

A thick string that will stay put when you step on it. You can use a nylon string with several loops, too... just put it around your foot. But then you're limited to the heights where you put loops.

[Phil Bick]

Originally Posted by Max@Home

...buy a piece of rope, make a loop on one end and put that over the lens, let the rope dangle down, and put your foot on the end that drops on the floor, pull the camera up to put stress on the rope, & voilà, you have an instant travel monopod...

Max@Home

This is a bad variation on an old improvisation to stabilize when hand holding. This can be a recipe for distorting or breaking the mount, on the lens or the body.
If you are going to use this rope trick put the loop over the hand supporting the lens. This eliminates any stress being applied to the lens or mounts and provides equivalent ability to stabilize the equipment.

The same principle can be applied by tying a string to your belt, and this alows you to be more mobile. The downside to this method is you you are supporting a bit more weight causing you to tire a bit quicker.

[2daysoldrndirt]

Originally Posted by Phil Bick

This is a bad variation on an old improvisation to stabilize when hand holding. This can be a recipe for distorting or breaking the mount, on the lens or the body.
If you are going to use this rope trick put the loop over the hand supporting the lens. This eliminates any stress being applied to the lens or mounts and provides equivalent ability to stabilize the equipment.

The same principle can be applied by tying a string to your belt, and this allows you to be more mobile. The downside to this method is you you are supporting a bit more weight causing you to tire a bit quicker.

I like this approach better than going to the lens or the camera body.

[scatterbrained]

Originally Posted by Phil Bick

This is a bad variation on an old improvisation to stabilize when hand holding. This can be a recipe for distorting or breaking the mount, on the lens or the body.
If you are going to use this rope trick put the loop over the hand supporting the lens. This eliminates any stress being applied to the lens or mounts and provides equivalent ability to stabilize the equipment.

The same principle can be applied by tying a string to your belt, and this alows you to be more mobile. The downside to this method is you you are supporting a bit more weight causing you to tire a bit quicker.

How are you going to break the mount? You hold the lens with you left hand underneath. Are you not supporting the lens with your left hand? Proper hand holding technique is to support the lens with the left hand, hence the left hand will be providing the force pushing against the rope. No force whatsoever will be on the mount. Honestly, if the barrel of the lens can't take the modest amount of pressure required to stabilize it you've got other issues. As far as the mount, it is more than capable of supporting the weight of the camera, plus a grip, plus a 580exII with better beamer mounted, plus an external flash battery pack. Ask me how I know.....
That's far more stress than this "technique" would exert on the mount.

[stef@apl]

Originally Posted by Phil Bick

This is a bad variation on an old improvisation to stabilize when hand holding. This can be a recipe for distorting or breaking the mount, on the lens or the body.

As I implied earlier, if you think this can damage the lens mount, I don't think you thought it through.

Picture this: you have a 70-200 2.8 on your camera, hanging down from your neck on a bright day. Leaning out over a balcony and holding a vertical beam for support, would you hesitate to lift the camera to your face using your right hand for a quick (albeit shaky) shot?

A 70-200 is fairly heavy, but I've made shots like this all the time. That's a lot of force on the lens mount. I routinely put the weight of the camera, plus battery grip, on the mount whenever I use the tripod ring. This means the camera, which is pretty heavy, is fully supported by the mount alone.

Mounts are strong, at least as strong as the tripod mount on the bottom. Barring accidents or overtightening, I've never heard of a lens mount or tripod mount getting bent or knocked out of alignment from simple use (and I consider something like this to be simple). I'm sure it's happened, but probably from vibration or a bent lens forced onto it.

If you're still concerned that pushing up on a lens while both gravity and a rope are pulling down on the lens is dangerous to the camera mount, you're doing it wrong. Simply lifting a heavy lens will put much, much more stress on the mount and few people would think twice about that.

That said, I like the belt idea. Even more, I like proper holding techniques. Jamming your elbow into your chest to support the camera usually does the trick for longer shots. I routinely shoot at 1/8 when I can stabilize myself, with maybe 50% keeper rate. I occasionally shoot at 1/4 handheld but that's a very low keeper rate. Even your heartbeat will mess that up unless you're shooting really wide.

[Phil Bick]

I have used this technique and seen it used many times. Yes, the mounts are designed for a few pounds of stress with no ill effects. But I have seen it cause damage (admittedly not in recent history). I don’t know any of the people who will read these posts, how strong or weak they are, how much pressure they will exert, or even how or where on the lens they will affix the chord (or rope).

All of these things can combine to place more stress than the mount was intended to withstand, if not in the short term, then possibly in repeated use. The advantage to putting the cord on the supporting hand is the pressure which does occur are not endured by the equipment, leaving it free of any outside stresses.

Have you considered someone adjusting their footing which causes a sudden increase in tension and stress on the lens. Not everyone has the same presence of mind and reaction to new or unfamiliar circumstances. The chord acts as a fulcrum creating a downward stress where the lens meets the body while the user maintains upward pressure at the body and somewhere out on the lens barrel. I bet Canon never tested for this.

Consider me over cautious if you will. After all, I don’t take my water resistant equipment out to shoot unprotected in a torrential downpour. I still think putting additional stress the mount as suggested is not the best idea.

[scatterbrained]

Originally Posted by Phil Bick

I have used this technique and seen it used many times. Yes, the mounts are designed for a few pounds of stress with no ill effects. But I have seen it cause damage (admittedly not in recent history). I don’t know any of the people who will read these posts, how strong or weak they are, how much pressure they will exert, or even how or where on the lens they will affix the chord (or rope).

All of these things can combine to place more stress than the mount was intended to withstand, if not in the short term, then possibly in repeated use. The advantage to putting the cord on the supporting hand is the pressure which does occur are not endured by the equipment, leaving it free of any outside stresses.

Have you considered someone adjusting their footing which causes a sudden increase in tension and stress on the lens. Not everyone has the same presence of mind and reaction to new or unfamiliar circumstances. The chord acts as a fulcrum creating a downward stress where the lens meets the body while the user maintains upward pressure at the body and somewhere out on the lens barrel. I bet Canon never tested for this.

Consider me over cautious if you will. After all, I don’t take my water resistant equipment out to shoot unprotected in a torrential downpour. I still think putting additional stress the mount as suggested is not the best idea.

Once again, if you're doing it right, it shouldn't be adding any stress whatsoever to the lens mount. If you're putting enough stress through the mount to damage it, as has been stated before, you're doing it wrong. All this technique is advocating is that you are putting a rope over the top of the lens and your hand on the bottom (and hopefully your elbow in your side), creating a gentle squeezing of the lens barrel.

[Epicuros]

I am a little surprised that you are not happy with the sharpness of the two images you have posted. They look spot-on to me. Of course the issue of sharpness, in general, if some movement is expected in "hand-held" camera situations is always a hot one.