Hand/Palm Grip for Olympus Lens

The idea for this thing came from watching YouTube videos made by Roger Hance who is an OM-Systems Ambassador in the UK. Roger is an accomplished photographer who I saw using a palm/hand grip on his Olympus M-Zuiko 150-400mm lens in order to make hand-held shooting more comfortable. The grip which Roger uses was designed and built by a friend of his called Edward Russell who makes them out of oak and other types of wood on a wood turning machine. I would urge anybody interested in obtaining one from Edward or wanting to get a better idea of what this thing is for, to look at the video posted by Roger on his YouTube channel on or around 29th January 2023.

I present two designs here: the first to specifically fit the Olympus 150-400mm lens using two washers and two 1/4” Camera D-Ring screws with a total length of 21mm. The second design should fit, (although I haven’t tried it out), the Olympus 100-400mm lens using a single washer and screw. Both designs will fit the 150-400mm lens.

I recommend printing in the orientation provided in my STL files as this will give more strength to the piece when in use, compared to printing it rotated through 90 degrees. When slicing, no support material is required as the design incorporates three support pieces which should be snapped away once the print is complete.

The support pieces are 0.5mm away from the end of the main structure and 0.25mm away from the main body where they are actually needed - as the print head starts to bridge when it gets to a height of 13mm. (I printed at a layer height of 0.25mm with a 0.4mm nozzle and a fill density of 25%).

Strength? Not as strong as anything similar made of wood of course but as the unit is only designed as a cover for the lens foot and not intended to be used in any shape or form as a handle, strength should not be an issue - no worries with my prototypes anyway as they felt quite solid between my hand and the lens foot when in use.

Material? I used recycled PLA for my prototypes - a wee bit more eco-friendly than nylon or ABS perhaps.

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Print Settings

Printer:

RepRap Mendel90

Supports:

No

Resolution:

0.25mm

Infill:

25%

Filament: Generic PLA Post-Printing =============

First thing to do is to gently snap out the three support pieces. That done you will see that there is a single layer, (when printing at 0.25mm layer height), at the bottom of the holes used for the screws - adding this sort of later is a standard 3D printing design technique because you cannot print holes if they appear in a construction at a point which effectively places them in fresh air! Use a 6.5mm drill and/or a small file to remove the extra plastic at this point. You may also wish to cut a piece of felt to stick onto the surface which goes agains the lens foot - this isn’t strictly necessary but does improve the look in my opinion and stops plastic peeling away from the ‘bridge’. I have included a couple of templates which be can used to cut out any such covering material. (I found some sort of foam for mine as shown in the pictures).