Which Camera Strap With 500mm Lens?

[Cellarman]

Never use a strap - invention of the devil!

carry my camera plus lens either in a Kata bag, or in my hand.

[momji1971]

Its a great lens for the money. My copy is not sharp wide open (I'm hyper critical!) but closed down a stop, F6.3, its a killer.

Would not advise using the camera to carry the lens, it weighs 3kgs and camera mounts aren't made for that kind of weight.

It may seem okay, my previous lens was an old 300 F2.8. I didn't know any better then. When I took it in to be serviced they noticed small hairline cracks appearing in the mount! Oops!

regards.
Stu.

[Jeremy68]

Just to say I went with Boddie/Andrew's suggestion of the Tamron strap; and am quite glad I did! It's much more comfortable than the original strap, and (so far!) the quick releases seem strong enough to hold the weight of my heavy Sigma lens. Thanks again for the suggestions.
As for the lens itself, I'm pretty happy with it sharpness-wise. Downside is that my model (DG version) will not autofocus properly with a 1.4x teleconverter (with taped pins): lens plus TC will only acquire focus on stationary subjects with good contrast in bright light. An older version (HSM, non-DG), which I used previously, focused remarkably well with a Kenko 1.4x TC, and gave pretty sharp results using good technique.
So, for bird photography, I would recommend looking for a secondhand non-DG Sigma 500mm.
Cheers,
J.