Attention All Artists And Artisans - Your Straps Have Arrived

Three more flexible delights in at the receiving desk this week: Artist and Artisan straps. These will be the final touch for careful camera owners.

The first style is the romantically-named ACAM 301.

It is a woven neck strap in black with a round profile - roughly 9 mm diameter - featuring black leather ends. These are sewn in as well as glued onto the round cord and will take the strain of the heaviest portable camera. Round SS attachment rings.

The second strap is the ACAM 295. It is a wrist-fit rather than neck strap

Here the profile is a flat strap in red material - 22mm wide. There is the standard SS spilt ring held in a black leather end piece with a camera protector flap as well.

The third newcomer is also a wrist strap - the ACAM290.

Black leather, 9mm wide and 3mm thick, it is formed from two pieces double-stitched together.Again there is a SS ring, leather end piece, and camera protector flap. It is packaged in a bright orange box.

I'm not sure if art is better served by the use of these straps, but they are certainly a better looking alternative to slinging your Leica round your neck with a piece of baling twine. Perhaps they just make you look better.

Remember to always search for these and other fine A&A products in our on-line store.

Suspending Your Disbelief With A New Strap

I used to laugh at all the people who made a collection of camera bags - until I counted how many I own. And all of them necessary, you understand. I went silent.

Then I took to laughing at the people who bought new straps for their cameras - replacing perfectly good manufacturer's straps. Then I looked in the various bags and counted the aftermarket straps...

So why? Why did I spend perfectly good drinking money on camera straps - and don't say it was just because I work in a camera shop. I can be as tight with my money as any of you. I did it because they all do something different.

Let me start with the manufacturer's contributions. Good for the most part, but comprised chiefly of nylon webbing with a hard edge and an advertising logo on the back. I can stand the advertisement but the hard edge of the webbing digs into my elegant swan-like neck something chronic. The camera end of one of them has a series of protective covers to prevent something - I find it chiefly prevents me getting the damn camera to my eye.

So I have an Op/Tec Classic padded strap to spare my neck. It suspends the heavy Nikon DSLR well enough to let me do 8 hours of bride-hunting. If I need to do an equal time with heavier artillery-  a long lens to capture the sword fighting - I use a Balck Rapid RS-4 and sling the thing off my left shoulder like a dragoon carbine.

All this is very well when utility is the go, but what do I do when there is a need for prestige and elegance - at the opening of the yacht club or the investiture at the palace? Why I just fasten the Artist and Artisan pure eco-friendly cotton strap grown on the south slope of the Cote des Straps and hand crafted by people with hands. I try to forget how much it costs, unless someone else seems to have a better one, then I tell them. It is a VERY good strap.

But I may have to change my tune. Think Tank have a new strap that is made up of cotton webbing and leather ends that feed into steel O-rings. It looks like it could be used as a lifting strap for panels on a tilt-up building site. And the webbing has a wavy pattern of soft plastic designed to grip on a slippery jacket and prevent the strap sliding free. I don't really need it, but....

Do It In STYLE....

If you are going to use a Leica camera you are going to pay money out. A lot of money. There is no doubt about this - it is one of the givens of the situation. As a Leica person, you might complain about it to us and try to get things cheaper, but you secretly love it. It marks you as different from the people who don't have enough money for Leica cameras.

If you are going to do it, you might as well do it in style. If your style is gaffer tape over the red dot and a piece of binder twine for a strap, go ahead. I can only imagine that you are doing it so that you won't stand out in the crowd...of people who have their shoes tied on with binder twine. Your photo essay will be fascinating.

If you would like to be seen as a little more sophisticated, may I suggest you look at a few of the offerings from Artist & Artisan and Leica themselves - the A&A cloth straps are superbly stitched and as you can see come in red or black. the Leica straps are leather and come in all shades. Note the cute little Thumbs Up button for the shutter release.

Finally, please note the classic style of the Leica ball head - generally paired with the folding tabel-top tripod legs. Solid heavy chromed casting and look at the speed lines turned into the ball portion to allow it to work even in grubby conditions. That is style!