Camera balancing

ShinySideUp

ShinySideUp

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Whilst on the hunt for yet another carry strap (I'll find one that suits me one day) I noticed something a little odd. At least on my camera -- a D850 -- the camera, when hung by the lugs, is only hangs level when there is no lens on it, which means that any attached lens, no matter how light, causes the camera to be pulled downward. I would have thought that the lugs would be placed to at least balance out a small zoom, I wonder if all interchangeable-lens cameras are balanced thus and why?
 
I suppose there's very little point in trying to make the camera balance with any lenses, as the manufacturer has no idea what lens is going to be used. You could make it balance with the kit lens, but then attach any other lens and that balance is off one way or another.
 
ShinySideUp said:
I wonder if all interchangeable-lens cameras are balanced thus and why?
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Many of the rangefinder cameras from the 1930s to the 1960s would sit level with all except the longest lenses. This was due to the cameras being made of heavy materials and the lenses being, in relative terms, lighter. (This led to a candid photography technique of fitting a longish cable release and taking the picture while the camera hung at the waist.)

When SLRs came on the scene, the lenses became bigger and heavier for various reasons No one took the question of how the camera should hang very seriously and traditionally designers put the strap lugs on each end of the body, hence the down tilted SLR became more or less standard.

One or two cameras went against this trend, most notably the East German Praktisix and its offspring, the Pentacon Six, with the lugs at the very front on the sides of the viewfinder housing. Interestingly, when Arsenal made their own copy of the Praktisix, the Kiev 6, they moved the strap lugs to the front edges of the main body.

camerapedia.fandom.com

Praktisix & Pentacon six

The Praktisix & Pentacon six series is a medium format film SLR system camera manufactured by KW later VEB Pentacon and Kombinat VEB Pentacon, Dresden, former East Germany and produced between 1957-90. Arsenal Kiev 60 is also with Pentacon six mount. But there is no relationship between the...
camerapedia.fandom.com camerapedia.fandom.com
 
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I assume you mean a neck strap?
Try balancing the combination across a thin pencil. That'll give you at least an idea of where the centre of gravity is. A knife edge like a ruler will be precise but that's really hard to do. You may well find with anything other than a heavy body and very light lens the cg is outboard of the front of the body. DSLRs don't really lend themselves to lugs on the body front face like some film SLRs had, but even my shortest lens a 17 - 50 is a shade heavier at a rough estimate than the 550D I use it on
So it don't work except in very few cases
Used to be my job, but on aircraft not cameras, and there it really did matter!
 
On the rare occasion I use a camera strap mine is set to attach top left and bottom right (looking from the back) This allows the camera to be purposely carried pointing downwards which imo is better anyway.
 
I had a problem carrying my camera at field trials. Pulled on my neck and bounced around as i walked. Finally got a harness for carrying a set of binoculars. One really bad problem with it was the straps were made out of that elastic and the camera bounced all over. Finally took off all the elastic and replaced it with nylon straps, cameraa carrys great now! if I'm going to be carrying the camera for any length of time I dig out that harness! I end up carrying the camera with my shoulders now and it doesn't bounce around at all. No use for a camera strap any more.
 
RichardC27 said:
I suppose there's very little point in trying to make the camera balance with any lenses, as the manufacturer has no idea what lens is going to be used. You could make it balance with the kit lens, but then attach any other lens and that balance is off one way or another.
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That's true but a camera is no use without lens and my thinking was that if the lugs on the camera were set forward of the CoG then the camera would tip back, attach a lens and you have an improved fulcrum point with less weight pulling the lens down as it is somewhat balanced by the camera, thus making it less of a strain to hold as slightly less weight is in front of your hands. Since you are never going to use the camera without a lens, it seemed sensible to me to use the position of the lugs to offset the weight of a lens, any lens, to some extent.
ecoleman said:
I have to ask, why the need for it to be balanced?
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It doesn't, I was merely wondering out loud, I do that, a lot...but see the above explanation.
Jannyfox said:
I assume you mean a neck strap?
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I do indeed.
 
I find a battery grip really helps with my D850. As Andrew said, 'This was due to the cameras being made of heavy materials'.

On my older Nikons like the F3, F4 & F5 it isn't a problem as they're that much heavier, so therefore better 'balanced'.

FYI - I use a PD Slide on all of them.
 
Back in the late '70s, I used a Pentax (S1 & later a Spotmatic), sometimes with a 135mm lens and that would dangle at an awkward (uncomfortable!) angle. Shorter lenses (28, 35 and 50mm) were OK though. Lenses were lighter without all the AF and aperture control mechanisms although they were also made of metal. Camera Wiki tells me that a Spotty weighs 640g naked and my Fuji X-H1 weighs in at 673g so an ounce and a quarter (or thereabouts!) more.
 
Nod said:
Back in the late '70s, I used a Pentax (S1 & later a Spotmatic), sometimes with a 135mm lens and that would dangle at an awkward (uncomfortable!) angle. Shorter lenses (28, 35 and 50mm) were OK though. Lenses were lighter without all the AF and aperture control mechanisms although they were also made of metal. Camera Wiki tells me that a Spotty weighs 640g naked and my Fuji X-H1 weighs in at 673g so an ounce and a quarter (or thereabouts!) more.
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The balance thing is really only an observation, my D850/Sigma 60-600 combination weighs in at 60g under 4Kg so where the lugs are mounted on the camera is largely irrelevant -- not that I use them to hold that lot up, usually I have a PD wrist strap connected to the lens (just in case) and carry it all around using my hand around the tripod foot.
 
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