Rule number 8: Camera Straps are a pain in the neck
I’m not a fan of camera straps. If I have one attached to my camera, I tend to wrap it around my wrist. I could live without them, but it’s nice to have the security of having something just in case I get clumsy, which I’ve been known to be from time to time. The biggest problem with them is that after wearing your camera around your neck for a bit, your neck feels like it’s spent a couple of hours at the gym.
My first stab at cracking the camera strap woes was under the guise of the Optech Pro strap. This is basically a shaped chunk of neoprene that sits around the base of the neck and distributes the weight. It also detaches from the camera attachments, which then clip together to form a short strap. As a piece of design work, it is genius. I gave it a full day’s testing at the Waddington Air show, and afterwards decided it was time to ditch the neck strap all together. The problem with the Optech strap was that it rode up my neck, making the camera heavier than if I’d just used a regular strap. Plus, on a hot day, all that neoprene makes for a sweaty strap.
So I got onto the net and looked at sling straps. There are a few to choose from, especially if you live on eBay, and over the next week or so I’ll post reviews of the Q strap, Carry Speed CS-1 and the Black Rapid RS-4. After reviewing each of them I’ll do a comparison between the three and make a few recommendations.
WeavingLight 