I was recently looking around for some article and pictures on Nikkor 17-35mm [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=137582\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The 17-35 is a small lens - no worries.
The question almost answers itself - longer lenses you cant hold with one hand unless you are a gorrilla and you shouldnt tripod mount off the camera if they have thier own tripod coller being
70-200, 300 2.8 600/4 etc
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There is something in engineering called 'fail soft' design
Where a part is designed to fail at a relatively low force/impact
Lens mounts are this.
Reason? because in an impact failure of this component will end up with a cheaper reapair than say breaking some glass elements in an expensive lens or ripping the whole mirror box out of the camera body
I have seen a 5d and 500/4 fall, blown over by wind, off a tripod, the body was ripped from the lens - the lens was undamaged - the body was largely undamaged- the impact forces were absorbed by the failure of this part - they had to go somewhere
Same is true for the hotshoe connection - we bought a box of SB28 hotshoes once and got the hang of changing them ourselves
SMM