Anyone ever worry about how much weight a top handle can hold?

[zapmedia]

I have a Berkey plate and top handle on my rig, with a matte box on 20 inch rails, a Zacuto baseplate, Zacuto plate on the back with a 2.5 pound bauer battery, Berkey shoulder pad and a Small Hd dp4, and some extra Berkey hardware. As far as rigs go, its not that heavy, but when I hand hold, I usually pick it up by the handle, and often carry it around with the handle.

I assume the camera is built inside a fairly heavy piece of machined metal, but I still wonder if I am putting too much stress on the camera using the top handle, even though its on the Berkey Plate. It would obviously be a disaster if the camera body became unstable.

Thoughts?

Here's a link to a picture of the rig.

http://www.multimediavideo.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/fs_100_rig_tweaked.jpg

 

[morgan_moore]

You rig is similar to mine

Personally I dont have a top handle for the reason you site

The berkely plate has thee points of contact?
That should help a lot as each mount point is somewhat protected by the other two in a SeeSaw manner

I would - If I were you - be looking for some way of moving the load around the camera - ie a cage or construction with rods

I use a 'side' handle on my rig - see it round the back.. this means the camera is never loaded




Off topic: I note you have a large battery and are not powering the camera - do you know that dummy batts are avaialble..

Best

SamMM

 

[plasticam]

I designed a top handle because I bought a name brand handle that attached on the side rods and the camera hit my leg all the time when walking. For me a top handle on the "keel line" is the only answer. Adam Wilt mentions in his review of FS100 AKS that some Sony Engineers pointed out to him that the FS100 chassis was not strong enough to support the size monitor he had attached. Adam pointed out my Shotgrip handle to them - and after they examined it, Adam says "they withdrew their objection". The way we made the cheesplate attach to the camera it actually increases it's strength by tying separate points into mutual support. Anway I really liked hearing that story after all the prototype revisions we went through to make the handle rugged. My ShotGrip attaches at 4 points (not two like the others) so you can use it with huge PL zooms. See for yourself http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/third-party_accessories_for_the_fs100/

That first pic is my handle, with the black walnut grip. it's not over priced either and comes with a mini cheesplate. At nab we are introducing a full size cheesplate with over the lens rods and other goodies. Details coming this Friday.