You want the strap? You can't handle the strap...
No, this isn't a Tom Cruise or English boarding school movie - this is still just the Camera Electronic weblog column. - but last week the writer visited the Murray Street store and saw evidence that Someone was thinking right - in this case, it was Gitzo.
We all get camera straps with our cameras - and in many cases leave them rolled up in the box when we put it in the shed. This is because we want to look cool without cameras dangling from our hands while we climb the Matterhorn, or because the straps included with the cameras are murder to use.
Murder on the necks and shoulders, mostly. From the wide ones that chafe everything to the narrow ones that saw through, the average maker's camera strap is good on the camera end and bad on the neck end. Edges can be sharp and stiff and in many cases the material is slippery.
Oh, you can change the strap easily - Camera Electronic has had a good selection of Op/Tech and Black Rapid and many other brands over the years - and in some cases, they alleviate much of the stress occasioned by the maker's offerings. But very few of them have actually looked at what a military strap used to be from the days when a soldier's equipment depended upon cross belts. ( Modern webbing is much better than historic stuff - armies have taken into account what soldiers are shaped like when cutting the patterns.)
The old cross belt of the British soldier was a white buff leather item - in the days of King George I it was straight cut - much as are most modern camera straps. It was wide, tough, stiff, and heavy...and took a lot of wearing and pipeclaying to be coaxed into a shape that would sit on a shoulder and support a heavy cartridge box on one side or a bayonet on the other. Whitehall bought 'em as cheap as they could and they could cut more straps out of a bullock's hide on a straight pattern.
Then in Queen Victoria's time, someone got smart - and started cutting the shoulder belts for the Enfield boxes on a curved or boomerang-shaped pattern. Not as many from a hide, but the belt settled and rode 100% better because it curved where a man curves. This was the inspiration for some of the
Black Rapid and now for the
Gitzo camera strap.
It's not bullock hide, but it's padded and curved and your neck or shoulder can escape chafing or edge pressure. Good quality end fittings as well, no damage possible to a good camera. The first-class strap in every respect.
