Where Art & Engineering Collide

Custom Camera Strap Setup

Posted on 19. Jun, 2009 by Terry Reinert in Hardware, Photography

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with Vanelli and Jeff King talking about camera gear. Jeff is the king (pun intented) at customizing camera gear and re-purposing non-camera gear for use in a photography related way. During our gear conversation we got to talking about camera straps and how over the shoulder single point straps are WAY better than around the neck straps. Jeff and Vanelli both have Black Rapid’s R-Straps which is something that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for awhile. It is a single point strap that you wear across your shoulder instead of around your neck. I looked at their straps and asked a lot of questions about them and I found out that they both had two complaints about the RS-4 strap… the bulky shoulder pad and the connector. I thought the padded shoulder strap would be nice but both said it was just added bulk and not needed. The connector wasn’t all that secure and after some internet searching, I found quite a few stories about cameras hitting the deck due to it not closing securely. It is important to note though that I have have no experience with the RS-4 strap so this is purely what I have heard and read about it. It is also important to note that Black Rapid is now shipping their straps with a new connector, the RS-2, which is supposed to be much more secure.

Anyway, this is not about the RS-4 strap… as I said, I don’t have any experience with it and I do not want to talk bad about it since I could be way off base. What this post is about is the custom strap that I put together using COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) parts. Jeff had mentioned wanting to order a single point rifle sling to use instead of the R strap. He had a few reasons for this… first being it wouldn’t have the bulky pad and the second reason is because many of them have a short elastic piece near the connecting point that would be very helpful for a camera. I took the idea to heart and started ordering the pieces I would need to make it all happen.

Single Point Rifle Sling

Have you ever dealt with a company and from that first dealing you just knew they were an awesome company? That is how I feel about Talon Arms. I’ve dealt with them many times in the past and I’ve found them to be some of the most helpful people when it comes to anything related to firearms. They even recommended that I NOT buy something from them in the past because it wouldn’t have done what I was wanting it to do. They are a great company and I highly recommend purchasing from them if you are going to buy the strap that I got (or anything else for that matter)!

I ordered the Command Arms Accessories One-Point Sling from them for the main strap. The current price is $27.99 which is 20% off the normal price. The sling is made from 1.5″ nylon webbing and has a large hard plastic quick detach buckle on it. The lower part of the strap where it connects to the camera is more like a nylon rope that gives a little elasticity. It doesn’t stretch much, hardly at all, but it does make a nice buffer between the non-yielding nylon webbing and your camera. The connector that connects the sling to the mount on the camera is a high quality self securing buckle similar to what you see rock climbers using. It is tough and meant to hold heavy tactical rifles so it can hold up a camera with a long lens just fine. There is also a nice sheath that moves down around the connector that keeps the metal from scratching or marring your camera.

Final note… all Command Arms Accessories products come with a lifetime warranty. They stand behind their products and I can see why judging from the quality of the strap. Also do not forget that this strap is in use by the military and law enforcement officers and has held up under severe combat environments. So why should you care? Because there is nothing that you can do to this thing with your camera attached to it that would come close to those conditions… unless of course you don’t care if your camera ever works again!

Camera Attach Point

I thought long and hard about what I was going to use to attach the sling to the camera itself. Vanelli has a tripod mount that has a small ring attached to it that he uses. My tripod mount has a small plastic ring on it and there is no way I am going to trust my camera to a small plastic loop. So I starting thinking about making a connecting point myself out of aircraft grade aluminum or stainless steel on my fathers lathe. Making the attach mount itself wouldn’t have been hard at all but getting a ring to secure to it in a way that I would trust thousands of dollars worth of camera and lens was a whole different story.

Then I looked at Black Rapid’s FastenR-2. They are selling exactly what I needed for $12! I could have made it cheaper and might have gotten the same quality but for $12 I was not about the reinvent the wheel. The FastenR-2 has a very low profile, very solid construction (made from 304 stainless steel), and has a high grade rubber compression washer to ensure a snug, positive connection with your camera. Don’t forget… this bad boy is made in Seattle so your money is going to a US company! Take a look at the image above in the sling section for a close up of the connector on my Canon 5D.

I also feel the urge to mention that the packaging of the FastenR-2 is pretty bad ass… they did a great job on the design. It has a tactical military feel to it that I really dig. Hey, its the little things that count, right?

Final Words

Adding up the cost for the sling, the FastenR-2, and shipping on both items comes out to be just under the cost of the RS-4 R-Strap from Black Rapid. So putting together a custom strap setup like this really wasn’t about saving money. It was about getting what I perceived to be a better camera strap based on what I have heard from friends and what I have read on the internet. From my experience I know that 1.5″ nylon webbing is comfortable even when there is dead weight hanging from it. The strap isn’t bulky where it rests on your shoulder and doesn’t get in the way when you shoot landscape or portrait. The connector on the strap is high quality self locking and made to support heavier weights in combat environments… so you know it is going to hold up and not fail at a critical moment. Finally, the FastenR-2 is high quality, low profile, and helps even more at keeping the strap out of your way when shooting portrait. You really cannot go wrong with this setup!

Oh, and maybe it is a Marine thing but I just think it is downright cool to say that my camera strap is tested true in extreme combat situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So order your straps now before the strap envy sets in and be the coolest photographer at every photo walk you attend!!

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Tags: Black Rapid, Camera Strap, Command Arms Accessories, Custom, Gear, Jeff King, Robert, Robert Louis Vanelli, Talon Arms