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This is similar to May I hold the DSLR in part by the hotshoe flash? but I'm asking about top handle. Is it safe to hold a camera that may weight more then 2kg with this? I have two lenses one is ~1.8kg and the other weight little big more than 2kg. If it matter I have Nikon d750 DSLR.

DSLR hot Shoe mounted top handle

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  • It's comparatively rare that a question starting with "Is it safe" will poll affirmatively, and safety is always relative to some risk metric.
    – user92750
    Jun 29, 2020 at 16:05
  • @user92750 not sure about other questions like that but here the risk is to drop the camera with broken hot shoe. I think that risk is pretty real here.
    – jcubic
    Jun 29, 2020 at 19:31

1 Answer 1

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Definitely don't try to support the camera by its hotshoe. It's not designed for it.

I don't think you should put anything at all on a hotshoe. Everything is so heavy and all the weight is pushing and pulling in all directions on that little joint.

Even if your hotshoe is designed to do that, that's an insanely bad holder. Your camera is hanging off the bottom with no protection. The handle is tiny and in a terrible position. The second you pick that up, you'll understand. You'll be holding all the weight of everything with your wrist and thumb. You want a big rounded handle so all the weight is distributed and balanced and you can hold it in different positions with both hands.

Here is a proper C shaped holder. See how the holder is taking all the load for everything? The camera is not only not being used as a holder but it has a nice big plate protecting it.

enter image description here

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    I'd also add that in general large lenses (EG Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D ED) come with their own tripod collars. Using these allows you to mount the camera/lens at much better balance point. It also looks like the bottom rail in that C shaped holder can slide forward and back to adapt to different mounting points
    – Peter M
    Jun 28, 2020 at 18:48
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    That fourth, different battery is bothering me.
    – clabacchio
    Jun 29, 2020 at 8:01
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    @clabacchio Better?
    – DiplomacyNotWar
    Jun 29, 2020 at 8:17
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    @John I'd have cranked it up by making all four different :)
    – Criggie
    Jun 29, 2020 at 21:14
  • Years ago we were remarketing a dSLR camera from a major manufacturer, and a government agency was buying them. One of the system engineers was determining the loading on various attach points, and the bottom line was that the flash hot shoe started to deform with about a 8 oz load on it. Vibration, G-forces, and other mechanical issues would likely cause failures. But what impressed me was that effectively the hot shoe was good for about a 3oz load.
    – mongo
    Jun 30, 2020 at 17:54

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