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A brief heads-up on an near-miss occurrence a couple of weeks ago while carrying the 50-200mm plus MC-14 on a BlackRapid sling strap, with the BR screw on the lens foot (I always check the tightness of that screw regularly while in use, it’s become a habit)
I’d been in the Lakes for 4 nights doing landscape photography, and had used the lens quite a bit on my tripod for telephoto images, both portrait and landscape orientation (so I’d been loosening and closing the foot clamp quite often). I’d got a bit tired of 3 days’ frequent grey drizzle, so on my last day I headed back across the Pennines for a lovely sunny day at RSPB Fairburn Ings, east of Leeds. I hadn’t brought the 300 or the MC-20, so I was a bit under-lensed for proper birding, but I had a great day walking the attractive trails on the reserve with the gear swinging from the strap.
I was just ambling back to the car for the drive back to Cambridge, when the foot clamp fully separated, and OM-1, converter and zoom headed for the ground.
Fortunately I’d briefly left the hard, gravelly trail to peer over some bushes and it landed squarely on a soft, muddy grass bank, and absolutely no harm was done.
After giving this some thought, I suspect I hadn’t fully tightened the clamp screw after my last use with the tripod the previous day and, as the phone image below shows, how I had the gear arranged then brought the clamp screw against my thigh, where it must had gradually further loosened as I walked.
So, I’ve adjusted the routine position of lens in the clamp so the screw is no longer in contact with any part of me, and I’ve added checking the foot clamp screw to my regular BR screw checks every few hours. It’s had a lot of use in the past few days here in Grenada without problems, so fingers crossed my diagnosis and treatment are correct.
The foot clamp screw has a fine thread, and you have to turn it quite a long way beyond first resistance to close it up fully. This makes it easy to set on the loose side to allow portrait-landscape rotation on a tripod, but my experience suggests it could leave it vulnerable to further loosening.
Hope this helps someone.
I’d been in the Lakes for 4 nights doing landscape photography, and had used the lens quite a bit on my tripod for telephoto images, both portrait and landscape orientation (so I’d been loosening and closing the foot clamp quite often). I’d got a bit tired of 3 days’ frequent grey drizzle, so on my last day I headed back across the Pennines for a lovely sunny day at RSPB Fairburn Ings, east of Leeds. I hadn’t brought the 300 or the MC-20, so I was a bit under-lensed for proper birding, but I had a great day walking the attractive trails on the reserve with the gear swinging from the strap.
I was just ambling back to the car for the drive back to Cambridge, when the foot clamp fully separated, and OM-1, converter and zoom headed for the ground.
Fortunately I’d briefly left the hard, gravelly trail to peer over some bushes and it landed squarely on a soft, muddy grass bank, and absolutely no harm was done.
After giving this some thought, I suspect I hadn’t fully tightened the clamp screw after my last use with the tripod the previous day and, as the phone image below shows, how I had the gear arranged then brought the clamp screw against my thigh, where it must had gradually further loosened as I walked.
So, I’ve adjusted the routine position of lens in the clamp so the screw is no longer in contact with any part of me, and I’ve added checking the foot clamp screw to my regular BR screw checks every few hours. It’s had a lot of use in the past few days here in Grenada without problems, so fingers crossed my diagnosis and treatment are correct.
The foot clamp screw has a fine thread, and you have to turn it quite a long way beyond first resistance to close it up fully. This makes it easy to set on the loose side to allow portrait-landscape rotation on a tripod, but my experience suggests it could leave it vulnerable to further loosening.
Hope this helps someone.
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