New Packs And Boxes - New Position In The Shop - Same Great Products

Here's a problem for shoppers: shop assistants...

Here's a problem for shop assistants: shoppers...

The answer to this is simple: we'll all blame the manufacturers...

We've all been to a supermarket to pick up a familiar packet of something; noodles, or cheese, or marzipan mortar bombs. And we've gotten increasingly frustrated at trying to find the goods in the myriad of products on offer. Whatever it is, it isn't where it was...the shop assistants have moved it, the rats.

And when we go and berate them, they point out that it is in exactly the same place that it always was. But the manufacturers have changed the packaging. No-one is really happy but the world goes on.

This is the case with the superb line of camera straps made by Black Rapid. We've been selling them for ages from a rack at the middle back of the Stirling Street shop in packets with pictures of happy owners on the front. If you have been circling the shop looking for these recently you will have become increasingly frustrated.

Now they are in the front between the Leica and Fujifilm and Olympus cabinets. And the boxes with the straps are ever so much more sophisticated now - a graphic designer has gotten to work on the packaging. This post is to alert you to the new appearance of several favourites; the Curve, the Hybrid, and the Street.

Still the same great flexibility, ease of draw, and security for your cameras and lenses, and particular stability for larger rigs - the bigger straps will not walk over your chest as you run about or draw the camera up and down.

Still the great favourite of photojournalists and street shooters. And pack shooters...

Well Strap Me Vitals! We're Lucky Now.

 

You miss a lot if you don't look close enough to the products in the Camera Electronic shop. The new premises near the corner of Murray and Queen Street was where I saw the Lucky camera straps seen in these pictures. I am guessing they are also at the 230 Stirling Street address as well...but in the new shop they stood out under the bright lighting...

Well there are enough colours and sizes - textures and materials, widths and lengths - to satisfy any camera's need. I can see wides, narrows, and wrist straps there in many browns and blacks. I'd be willing to bet they made other colours as well.

 

They're a composite style - leather shoulder or neck pad and tough woven section that runs down to the camera rings. Properly sewn at the junction too, in military or saddle-making style. Tough as old boots.

They seem to be packaged distinctively - there's not many products that you can buy today that are wrapped in twine in tissue in a fitted box. Quite an old-world experience.

 

But take note - it's not the old Asian or European world we're dealing with here. These are made in Melbourne. You're supporting Australian industry while you're supporting your Japanese camera...

They are extremely well-made  - make sure you see them when you visit the new shop. Remember that Christmas present season is just about to start - get in early.

The new Camera Electronic store is now open at 2/324 Murray St, Perth
For opening hours click here

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.

The Barbershop Quartet

I love products that allow me to practise cheap and corny headlines. The Barber Shop company have my entire approval...and not just for their charming name.

They are, briefly, makers of exceptionally fine camera bags, backpack, Gladstone bags, and straps. The level of design and craftsmanship that they show is wonderful.

Here's 4 products that just came into the shop. I don't know how much they cost, because I pinched them off the receiving dock and ran for the studio before they could stop me, but I am guessing ...a lot. No getting around it when you look at the detail of the leather work. Think the top level of Italian workmanship.

The little straps are intended for connection to the right-hand side suspension lug of a digital camera.

The dark one you see in the illustration is called the Razor Cut. It's leather, with metal ring and clip mechanism that is shielded from the camera body with a broad leather pad. You rig it into a loop and slip your wrist through. Unlike some of the other ones made from nylon cord, it does not cut the blood circulation to the hand as you use it. It is sturdy enough to act as a war flail - If your photography involves mayhem this would be a good buy.

The lighter coloured strap - the Tight Contour - is a pad that also attaches under the camera body and snugs it to your hand. Very comfortable - if you had to do a long job this would be a blessing.

The big long strap is one of the dragoon-style designs that encircle the body and allow the camera to be tracked up and down the front of the shooter on a carabiner clip. You'll know the names of the opposition makers' products from other weblog posts, but remember this one as one of most elegant and effective. It's called the Full Beard.

The pad is leather, curved in 3 dimensions, and a perfect fit to the shoulder. There is a rubber inner liner to prevent it falling off.

The strap is smooth webbing. The rider is tough and has a leather shield to the clip. The clip itself has a roller lock that prevents the jaws from opening when you don't want them to.

The final item is the bag. Black leather, fully lined with cloth, and with a customisable internal padded insert. It is rounded, finished and sleek. The latch is one of the smartest ones on any bag - it opens from the top rather than the bottom and is a simple snap. No massive fumbling buckles or crude leather cutouts. No complex plastic alligator buckles that take your cuticles off.

Elegant. If you've a top-quality mirror-less system to carry, carry it in this.

Barber Shop Quartet? Sweet, Adeline...Check out the range on our online store.

How To Tie A Slip Not With Black Rapid

Born to Pun...the curse of Stephan Pastis and me...and every other advertising or copy writer in the world. If you are not familiar with the comic strip " Pearls Before Swine" by Pastis I advise you to google it for a couple of weeks until one of the pun strips comes by. It will be worth it.

Back to the Black Rapid. On a call into the shop I noticed that they have made a new shoulder pad for some of their straps and the thing is a beauty.

Prior to this, some of these iconic straps were made with shoulder pads that slipped fore and aft on the straps. This was fine for positioning the strap and the camera on the other end of it, but the characteristic sliding action of the Black Rapid system sometimes resulted in that shoulder pad crawling down the front or back of your shirt. This was particularly troublesome if you were wearing a shiny polyester shirt or a nylon rain jacket.

Black Rapid makes some of their straps with an ancillary lock strap that runs under the armpit and that deals with the problem., but at the cost of another operation to get in or out of it. Now they have a better solution.

Look at that pad - it is made of a soft live rubber with a very flexible shape, plenty of thickness, and gripping patterns on either side. It hits your shoulder and stays there - even when you slide the camera up and down continuously to your eye. And mark this; if you have to put another pack or strap over the top of this, it also benefits from not being as likely to slip off the shoulder.

Ergonomics in photographic equipment need not evoke an " Erg...". This is design done right.

What's In A Name - The Strap Game Gets Stranger

On my second pester stop one dayI talked with Daniel - the man who wrestles with corporate and institutional sales and who is adding things to the on-line ordering system. I cannot pretend to understand most of the mechanisms that he employs for this but he did reveal a few new lines of products that will be available soon.

The straps caught my eye. Now I have posted before on the Frontier and Colonial Photographic Establishment weblog column about searching for a perfect camera strap. I had nearly sawed my neck off with a series of regular straps from different camera makers and realised that I needed to replace either them or the neck.

I've been somewhat successful in comfort terms but have still to achieve coolness and style. Currently the Little Studio cameras depend from four different types:

1. An Op/Tech 3/8" Classic for the X-Pro1 and lens. Comfy.
2. A Crumpler mini cotton strap for the X-E2...a bit of a worry as it is narrow...
3. A Crumpler wide strap for the X-T10. Comfy and sturdy but a little garish. They only had pink ones left...
4. A fluoro green Joby wrist strap for the X-100. You could make a fighting flail out of this one...

They manage but look pretty naff. I'm still looking for Mr Goodstrap.

Two more candidate companies that may supply an answer are just coming on stream with CE. If you wish to get an idea of what they make, and what they right about what they make please google up these two:

Tie Her Up Straps   Camera Bondage

Deadcameras Straps

No. I'm not kidding. I can invent a lot of stuff but I can't invent those names. I googled them and had a read. The straps look nice anyway, and they might be just the thing to make the cameras look cool.

The Mirror-less Strap According To Peak

Mirror-less cameras are becoming a way of art for a lot of us. Some choose them because they want a lighter package to carry - some choose them for the quick handling - some for their unobtrusiveness. I love mine for the vibrant jpeg images that shoot straight onto the web page.

Every manufacturer of a camera gives the buyer a camera strap in the package. But many buyers shy away from these and look for aftermarket ones with special features - thus the Peak Design" Leash ".

Is this a good one for you to take your mirror-less camera for a walk? Well look at the details:

The snap-on camera connector that can be detached from the main strap for packing or studio use. Those Kevlar cords are internally coded so that if you ever do wear the tough little things out they give you a yellow and then a red signal for replacement.

The strap is slick premium-quality webbing with an adjustable buckle in the middle.

The camera can be attached by its integral lugs as per the regular maker's strap or you can opt for the Peak quick release plate on the bottom surface of the body. This in turn can mate with Peak belt docks or Manfrotto tripod quick release shoes. If you need to carry the camera body at an odd angle this strap will mate to it.

And it is narrower than the full-size DSLR strap.

In store & available on our online shop now with the other fine Peak products in our bag and strap section.

Hitting Your Straps And Saving Your Neck With Peak Design

In another of my weblog columns* I vowed to go out to every camera shop in Australia to look for a better strap than the one I got with my camera. I have sawed my neck half off with a heavy zoom lens and need something soothing while the glue dries on the vertebrae.

This may be a candidate. The Peak Design people started out a few years ago with innovative camera holders that let you park you equipment on a belt instead of a strap - though you could sometimes combine the two ideas by latching the things onto backpack straps. They still make these sorts of camera docks but have also branched out into more conventional straps. Or are they all that conventional...?

The Slide is the one we're testing out today. It is advertised as being able to be configured as a sling, neck or shoulder strap.

Basic structure is nylon webbing. Slick and smooth-edged - good so far. It runs from 95cm to 132cm so if I gain weight dramatically I can still fit in it.

The atttachment points are teflon cord, which is easy to slip into camera lugs. In addition, there is a plate mount so that you can put one cord on a lug and one on the underside of the camera where the tripod screw goes in. Makes for two more options in slinging the camera, and as the plate has the edge measurements of Arca Swiss plates, you can clamp it on Arca heads straight away.

The strap has a quick-adjustment lever that lets you slide it up and down with ease - while wearing it if you wish.

And the bit I love - the strap has a unique quick-disconnect lug set at each end of it to let you click it all off if you are using the camera in a studio on a tripod. No more dangling strap interfering with ball head or three-way head controls or falling over the eye sensor and shutting the darned LCD screen off! This alone would improve the language in the Little Studio by about 150%...

I still will look at every strap in Australia but this is a good contender.

* frontierandcolonial.wordpress.com

Peak Design - Innovative Ways To Sling Cameras

Manufacturers are always coming up with new and unusual ways to sling, attach, and deploy our camera equipment. Here in the shop we have at least 4 different independent firms who produce straps and clips, as well as those provided by the camera makers themselves.

Is there a point to it all?

Well, after buying one of darn near everything over the years...a hazard of working in a camera shop...I can report that it does have several points - though the makers may not like what I am going to write.

The camera manufacturers all do provide some form of strap for their cameras - designed for either your neck or your wrist. They are nearly always of good construction and can be relied upon to keep the camera up off the ground. The cameras themselves have different suspension points depending upon their design*, but in their turn these are nearly always well anchored. Very few cameras have ever dropped off their own suspension lugs.

Maker's straps can be leather or woven fabric. If they are thick or have sharp edges they can dig into the neck. They also have the operational disadvantage that they are always on - standard camera straps have no disconnect to allow the camera to sit on a tripod undisturbed - you are always fighting your way through the strap to get to the controls, and if your camera has one of the circuits that allows it to turn off the LCD when you eye approaches the viewfinder...well the strap is always cutting off your picture.

Enter the Peak Design "leash". It is smooth webbing, with unique disconnects that cannot allow the camera to undo and fall. The strap is easily disconnected when the camera is on a tripod, and there is provision to accept a further accessory to allow the camera to be suspended from the tripod screw on the bottom.

Other unique configurations are a belt leash - you use it in conjunction with a camera dock on your waist belt - and a wrist strap.

Note: My experiences with a wrist strap are still under analysis - it lets you keep the camera under control but means that your tea-drinking hand is rather shackled.

* Let us now praise the Leica M5 which had the best lug position of any camera ever. Most of the rest of it was disturbing but the lugs were wonderful.

Stuck On You - With Nikon, Promaster, And Fujifilm

Many of us have cameras that hang round our necks. Or over our shoulders. Or suspended from a HIAB crane off the back of a tray-top Toyota. This is because in our impetuous youth we desire ever bigger lenses and camera bodies. We have muscles and ambition.

Later, both of these attributes go. We find our desire to haul heavy machinery long distances abates and we trade our Flapflex Massiva Grandissimo camera for a mirrorless and are much happier. When we do, we have a new option for hauling the camera about.

We can attach it to our right hand and eschew the neck strap altogether. The camera will stick to us like a bad reputation and we can hoist it or lower it for candid street photography with no fear that it will skitter off over the pavement. It will be discrete, even when we are not.

Try one of the many varieties. Just don't forget that you have your mirrorless attached to it and absentmindedly try to scratch your nose.

Own An Ona

No need to spill your camera on the ground - Ona is here with the strap you need.

If you have been frustrated with the selection of camera straps available until now - too hard, too plain, covered in brand names, too narrow, etc., etc. - then prepare yourselves for a treat. The Ona company have sent us three new ones from their premium range.

The Presidio style is made in either waxed cotton fabric with leather end attachments or in a much fancier all-leather version. Apparently the leather is tanned by Italians. A valuable point, that.

The Lima style is similar to the Presidio but seems to be in a khaki fabric and a lighter brown leather - presumably for use before 5:00 PM or in tropical climes.

The fittings are top-quality and the straps do sit very well round the neck or on the shoulder - and they definitely add value to your camera.

I shall be reporting on their bags in another post.

The Strap-On Follies Or How I'm Learning The Hard Way

Sitting there looking at the Fuji cameras I own started me thinking. I have encased two of the bodies in purpose-built cages to allow for easy attachment to my Cullmann  or Gitzo tripod  and to allow me to attach a Fujifilm EF 42 flash easily on the side. The cages are well made with Arca Swiss rails on two sides.

They're great - they provide a better grasp of the camera body and metal protection against bumps and knocks. Even if you don't attach them to a tripod, they can act as platforms in either landscape or portrait orientation to steady the camera. And they are not  too heavy.

But....

They jigger up the attachment point where the camera strap clips onto the sides of the cameras. I can get away with the stiff proprietary strap on the X-100 or a thin little Crumpler Hitch on the X-E2 body, but neither feel comfortable...and in the case of the Crumpler, a big lens seems to add an unsafe weight. I determined to get another to provide a better carriage.

Mistake N0.1 yesterday - I got a big strap from Crumpler with the sort of metal ring and leather flap that we see on A&A and other premium straps. No good. The leather flap and the metal cage are fighting for space - every time you put the camera to your eye you have to fight your way in there . Even your shutter button finger is pushed out of the way.

Mistake No.2 today - tried several of the hand-hold wrist straps attached to one ring. Alleviated the eye/strap contest but introduced the wrist/cramp/problem. Plus this ties the camera to the drinking hand...

Mistake N0.3 tonight - I am going to go out into the shed and dig out the old leatherworking tools and see what is in the scrap bin. If I made a perfectly good holsters for Colt .44 Army revolvers*, I can make a strap for a Fuji X-E2.

Yee hah.

* And I did.

Pack Shots For Packing Cameras - With Black Rapid

I am generally ashamed of myself for presenting pack shots on this blog instead of the goods out in the open. But when I see that the pack is sealed and the goods inside are big and floppy and troublesome to photograph...I conquer my shame.

Today there are three newish thingish things from Black Rapid - the leaders in camera slinging technology. Those who are inclined to dispute that claim are invited to come down here with a Nikon D4s and a 200-400 Nikkor lens. They can attach said optical artillery to a neck strap and then to a Black Rapid rig and see which feels good. We have the chiropractor on speed-dial when they find out...

The new slings are:

Kick: A wide shoulder pad and a canted dodge-the-bumps configuration allow female photographers who are toting heavy gear to do it in clavicular and thoracic comfort. Stylish, too.

Yeti: You can sling two big cameras off this one but it does so off a very wide left-shoullder pad. A working sling rig for the heavy duties.

Tether: Two anodised carabiner clips, two camera-ready short straps, and a useful accessory bag help the Black Rapid user secure their camera to straps they already own but also allow other people who use mirror-less systems to cobble up a very lightweight travelling rig. Ask us how. We don't know yet, but that should not stop us...

All the big Black Rapid straps will support 25 Kg at the working end. If your camera weighs more than that we salute you.



 

Doing The Stock Order - Strap Me Up

We're doing the order today for Op/Tec, which makes me happy. The firm makes straps, pouches, containers, and all sorts of little storage ideas for cameras and lenses. They are prolific and imaginative, and the products are excellent.

I can say that because several of my cameras hang off or nestle in their products, and I will probably equip all my stuff with Op/Tec eventually. I am starting to value lightness in carriage more as I get older and Op/Tec lets me protect the gear but pare down the weight.

I can particularly recommend several things:

1. Straps with loop connectors.

 Most of the cameras that we carried in the 60's and 70's had D or triangle rings hanging from metal posts at the sides of the bodies - many of today's cameras follow suit. These in turn captured heavy leather or nylon straps with belt loos and buckles to allow for adjustment. In some cases we had the equivalent of a rifle sling on either end of the camera...which regularly scratched either the camera body or our hands and faces as we used the camera. The cameras brassed and we bled.

Op/Tec make some of their straps and connectors with loop ends - see the image - and these can suspend heavy bodies while getting out of the way of our hands and faces during fast shooting. They are ever so much more comfortable than the bulky rigs.

2. Hood Hats.

Neoprene cups that pop over your lens or lens hood. I keep them on Nikon 35mm and 50mm lenses because they have round lens hoods. They protect the lens as it scootches around inside the camera bag - they also protect it as I stroll around in a crowd. Much better than a lens cap.

The order goes off this week and we'll keep you in touch with when the goods arrive.

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!