VE6AB Technical

The Camera Strap

Since I first started carrying a camera all those years ago, I began looking for a better camera strap.
Years ago the choices were very limited, but as the years went by, the aftermarket choices started to take hold, and photographers everywhere rejoiced.

Course they rejoiced for a good reason, as the manufacturers of cameras have no imagination, or maybe there is a method to their madness, as the camera strap that comes with your favorite DSLR is a walking nightmare with the manufacturers name plastered all over it.
There is no way that I will get caught walking around with this very geeky looking strap supplied by the manufacturer of my cameras around my neck, and if I am forced too for whatever reason, I blacken everything out with a felt marker, including the branding on all my camera bags.

I'm not the only one, as I deify you to show me a photographer serious about his or her craft that uses an original camera strap, not only for the reasons stated, but for other reasons as well.

For example, my DSLR camera bodies have non-descript straps (although carefully chosen) that have the ability to be quickly disconnected from the camera body when the camera is on a tripod, so as not to get in the way, or possibly because I have my long lens mounted in place, and it has its own carrying strap due to the heavy weight of the lens.

Today there is a bewildering array of camera straps that allow you too carry the camera in any position you can think of. It seems as though carrying a camera around one's neck is the last thing you want to get caught doing.

Personally I prefer a camera strap that allows me to carry my cameras cross shoulder, the strap long enough to allow me to quickly raise the camera and shoot without unslinging the camera.

My straps still connect to the camera lugs, although there seems to be a multitude of choices that allow the strap to connect to the tripod hole located in the bottom plate of the camera body.
I don't particularly care for that strap design, as I visualize the bottom plate being torn from the camera body due to the heavy weight of the combined body and lens hanging from the tripod hole.
This is not just me dreaming that up, as it has happened more than once to photographers out there.

Now the straps that I use on my heavy DSLR's have some width to them, allowing for the weight of the camera to be carried easier, but when it comes to my smaller cameras, like the street camera pictured here, I wanted a strap to replace the original one that came with the camera, that although it allowed for the camera to carry fine, it also didn't make the cut in my eyes.

Now all the rage today are leather camera straps, and although there's not enough leather in one to hang one's self, the price of a leather camera strap will run from $80 to $200 dollars or more!

So having decided that a leather strap would give this rangefinder looking camera a vintage look, and not wanting it to look too over the top, but wanting it to look like it had been around for a long while, I went down to Tandy Leather, and purchased some leather, and came home and made up several camera straps, one narrow and straight end to end, and the other as seen on the camera, wider around the neck area, and tapering to the lug ends..
The brass rivets holding the strap together, I made up in my workshop.
When it was all said and done, the cost came in at $7 for my newly completed vintage looking leather strap.

In case you were wondering about the black camera strap, it is made from a length of mountaineers climbing rope.

Oh.....in the field or on the street, it carry's and looks as I imagined it would or should!
Take a look.....
https://www.jerryclement.ca/HamRadio/VE6AB-Technical/i-fbhdSPP

Expand the photo for sa closer look.....