How do you GRIP your camera when changing LENS ??

I've been thinking-over whether or not to keep using a battery grip. I posted in the gear section about pros and cons of grips. But I think this question fits the general photography section. After fiddling with my cameras with and without a grip, I noticed that changing lenses and how the body is held may matter most to me. I've always used a grip and never gave it much thought. Now I can see I was holding the grip in my left hand and lens in the right hand.

For any of you who don't use a battery grip, can you describe how you are grasping your camera body when switching lenses? Are the camera buttons an obstacle?

I don't particularly like putting my hands on the screen to keep it clean, but the only comfortable option I find is fingers under where the camera plate goes, palm over the screen, and thumb hooked over the top to the right of my viewfinder.

I grab it however, no real method. But I tend to use my left hand to hold the camera and I manipulate the lens with my right hand. It's just more natural to me, and I'm right handed.

I don't care if I touch the LCD or anything, or press buttons. I do it a little different on each camera, depending on size. I grabbed my smallest APS-C to demonstrate real quick, since a picture is a lot easier than a manuscript for this purpose.

Strap around my neck, right hand doing the lens change. Sometimes with, sometimes without help from the left hand.

Camera in left hand, lens in right. Which lens is coming off, and which is going on actually play a far more important role than the body, and the presence or not of the grip. Especially as my lenses range in size from the original 18-55, to the Sigma 150-600 C.

Alan

Well I place the lens between my legs and grip the lens barrel with my knees. Then with both hands gripping the camera body I press the lens release button with the middle finger of my left-hand and then twist the camera body in an anticlockwise direction and remove the body from the lens. It is at this point that I think to myself that I ought to have sat down beforehand, as I now have become very unstable and have to let go of the camera body with one of my hands and grab hold of a nearby solid structure to steady myself. Unable to move because the lens is still between my legs, the camera is in my right-hand and my left-hand is grabbing onto a fence post, I will try to twist my body around so that I am now leaning back against the fence post and then slowly slither down the fence post into a sitting position. By the time that I have got myself into a sitting position I have usually forgotten what I took the lens off for in the first place.
You would think that after fifty years of doing this I would be better at it.

"I want you to hold the chicken salad, between your knees"

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18359795
Strap around my neck, right hand doing the lens change. Sometimes with, sometimes without help from the left hand.

What he said.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18359795
Strap around my neck, right hand doing the lens change. Sometimes with, sometimes without help from the left hand.

Appreciating the feedback. I don't use my straps now and it escaped my thinking how a strap can help support camera weight.

It may be worth adding to my OP ...

I usually face my camera front downward to keep dust from floating into it as easily. And that relates to how I will try and hold my camera with and without a grip. With a grip, I find it very easy to hold the camera front downward. Without the grip, is where it seems more uncomfortable for me.

If you are working without a strap, at some point, you end up juggling three pricey objects,. two lenses and a body. (not to mention at least one rear lens cap)

This kind of juggling is a recipe for disaster.

Here is what I do.

1. Find a level solid surface, like a table or a sidewalk. No beds or couches or lawns.
2. Place the new lens on the level surface with the rear cap pointing up. Make sure you know where the red dot is so that you don't have to search for it later.
3. Loosen the rear cap.
3. Hold camera in left hand like I normally would, with the lens facing downwards. The LCD screen or the buttons never get touched.
4. Remove the old lens and place next to new lens. Switch the rear cap from the new lens to the old lens
5. Pick up new lens and screw it into the camera.
6. Tighten rear cap on old lens and replace in bag.
7. ZIP UP THE BAG. This is super important. Better to miss a capture than spill the lens while running to get your pic.


Shouldn't take more than 5 secs.

Some lenses seem to have been made more difficult than need be the case. I find the 85L tricky, for example. The red dot is on the rear face of the lens and not on the barrel. As soon as you present the lens to the camera, it is therefore effectively out of sight (the more so, given the 'keg' shape of the lens). It's easy to lose track of exactly where the red dot is during the process.

I'm especially uncomfortable with the 85L given how exposed the rear lens element is. It seems it would be very easy to scratch.

I GRIP it secure. With lens mount as down as possible, but never up like in the second post. I'm old school which comes from cameras with no sensor shake. Plus, where is no way I would be able to mount L tele zoom and camera just like two electrical extension cords.

Post #10 is the must read, IMO.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18360411
If you are working without a strap, at some point, you end up juggling three pricey objects,. two lenses and a body. (not to mention at least one rear lens cap)

This kind of juggling is a recipe for disaster.

For some, I can imagine the recipe for disaster. With a battery grip, the recipe is nearly non-existent for me. But what you wrote is why I asked others what they do to see what options there are if I can shed the battery grip weight and bulk.

When I use the grip, I can hold the grip solid, slide one lens off onto my bag, then mount the other lens. Or, I sandwich the body and grip againt my chest like a vise and swap lenses. I alway lay one lens down before I grab the other.

Now ... if I shed the grip, those options vanish like smoke. But I'd enjoy downsizing bulk.

I use a Spider Holster. Quite easy to change lenses. Remove lens, hook camera back on holster, remove new lens, remove cap, remove camera from holster, install lens, shoot.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18359924
"I want you to hold the chicken salad, between your knees"

You could grip it by the husk.