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mikeyp2000

Hi,

It's me again. Sorry to be such a continual pest!

I find myself wondering about the strength of the tripod mount on my A77 and also on the VGC-77AM.

The reason I am asking about this is that I recently purchased a Black Rapid RS-4 shoulder strap. It connects to the camera by screwing a mount into the camera's tripod mount then you clip the strap on to the Black Rapid mount. It all seems secure enough and the camera hangs nicely at my hip, upside-down from the tripod mount.

It works very well and the camera is much more accessible than using a similar 'over the shoulder' hang with the supplied Sony strap. The original Sony strap is far too 'grippy' and snags on clothing - I end up with a jumble of camera and strap or have to heave on the camera to unsnag the strap when it sticks to my clothes.

Here's my worry though - with VGC-77AM, a 70-200/2.8 lens and maybe even a flash mounted, the whole rig weighs nearly 3kg. I am not too worried about the Black Rapid fasteners snapping as they seem to be made of steel and appear quite sturdy. What I am worried about is that the tripod mount on the camera or grip might not take the strain and just tear out eventually.

So, how strong are these designed to be? Can they support 3kg, upside-down without being damaged in the long term? Are they liable to rip out or are they part of the magnesium framework of the camera/grip? How strong is the magnesium frame?

Perhaps I should devise a way of connecting my strap to one of the camera's built in strap mounts. Then I need to know if using just one of the camera mounts is sufficient to support 3kg. The supplied Sony strap is designed to attach to both of the camera's mounts so perhaps one is not sufficient after all....

Can anyone in Sony provide any data or recommendations on this?

Cheers.

Michael

Mick2011

Hi Michael

I know what you mean, although my concern has always been for the flange connecting the lens and body with heavier optics. In general, any lens heavy enough to cause a problem should have its own mount point and you should use it... IMHO any lens weighing considerably more than the camera, without a mount point, has not been well-thought-out.

Three kilos should be well within the tolerances of the a77 mount, even though (a) I've never seen any data on this and (b) the mount is fixed to polycarbonate, not the metal frame of the body, AFAIK. The force required to 'pop' that mount would require a considerable leverage equivalent to a wrenching a very long & heavy lens + camera from a body-mounted heavy tripod setup. As I say, you should always have any long lens mounted at the lens itself, so that's (hopefully!) a purely hypothetical situation.

I once watched a guy repreatedly picking up his DSLR fixed to a heavy tripod by the camera strap to move it around... it made me cringe, but it appeared to be perfectly ok...

Hope that's even slightly reassuring!

Cheers

Mick

mikeyp2000

Thanks Mick, I feel quite reassured by that....

Do you have any advice on the actual camera stap mounts? I have the impression they are part of the main camera chassis. Would they be strong enough that just one 'lug' could reliably hold the camera, grip, flash and a 24-70/2.8?

I think I'll use the tripod mount on the 70-200 in place of the camera's tripod mount but the main camera 'lugs' also look quite sturdy...