Employed as a contract photojournalist for The Post-Tribune, part of Chicago’s Sun Times News Group, since 2004, Guy Rhodes‘ highlights include covering the 2008 U.S. presidential election, as well as flying with aerobatic teams during coverage of the annual Gary South Shore Air Show. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater/Lighting Design at Columbia College in Chicago, and splits his lighting disciplines between shows for live audiences and lighting for the camera. As director of photography, Guy has completed numerous independent short and feature films, as well as music videos and industrials.
When I think back to one of the first moments my dad handed me his Canon AE-1 (probably while at Disney World trying to get a cleaner angle of Mickey Mouse at age 3), he placed the camera in my hands while draping the camera’s strap around my neck. As I went to walk off, letting the camera go and allowing it to dangle by the strap, my dad stopped me. “Don’t trust that (the strap), always keep your hand on the camera.”
Some twenty years later, every time I pick up any device that has a carrying strap, my dad’s words from Disney World echo through my mind, “Don’t trust that.” My hands, as if by reflex, immediately tighten around the device in question.
Perhaps my dad’s concerns were unfounded. After all, have I ever had a camera strap fail? No. Do I carry cameras strictly by the strap on my shoulder? Of course — when shooting with two bodies, it’s virtually required. Still, though, the idea that the strap could fail, slamming up to $7,000 of gear into the pavement, has caused me to stick with the practice of keeping my hands on my gear whenever possible.
This fear of strap failure has also caused me to gravitate toward the simplest of straps in existence. The factory-provided DSLR straps from Canon and Nikon are ideal in my book because there’s not a whole lot to go wrong. No buckles to come undone, no metal or plastic pieces in a position to snap under stress. Tough fabric secured through the camera body’s strap loops hasn’t let me down yet, making these minimalistic straps a fixture on every camera body I’ve owned since 2000.
Naturally, when I first opened the box for Custom SLR’s camera strap system, I was a bit reluctant. This was one of “those” straps, the ones with the bells and whistles. The ones where I’d imagined twenty buckles popping open at the same time, sending my cameras tumbling as I chased after President Obama greeting the aliens who’d just landed on the White House lawn! Alright, so maybe my fancy-strap-reluctance led to a brief moment of delirium. Taking that into account, I decided to give Custom SLR’s straps the benefit of the doubt and take them on an all-out Guy Rhodes test run.
Along for the ride were the Camera Strap with Split-Strap Technology (the heart of the operation), the C-Loop Strap Mount System (attaches the strap system to the 1/4″ tripod screw mount on the bottom of the camera), and the M-Plate Pro (an alternate mounting point for the C-Loop Strap Mount that also doubles as a tripod plate for common Manfrotto and Acra-Swiss style tripod heads).
Threading the two-piece Custom SLR Camera Strap through the loops on the C-Loop Strap Mount was pretty straightforward, and buckling it into the Camera Split Strap (the part that goes around your neck) was equally self explanatory. Still, I would have appreciated some documentation in the bag to confirm I was doing everything correctly (you’re only provided with a web site URL to the manual at this time).
Attaching the C-Loop Strap Mount System (which threads into the tripod socket on the bottom of the camera) to the camera body led to an interesting discovery. The system actually results in the camera hanging upside-down around your neck.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this mounting method at first, but ended up finding it to be quite comfortable. When the strap sits over your right shoulder, the camera ends up in a very ergonomic position to be grabbed by your right hand and rotated right up to your eye. This would be perfect for my street or travel photography, where I commonly carry my camera over my shoulder to tuck it out of view. Unfortunately, this upside-down mounting method led me to discover a troublesome side effect relating to the camera’s shutter button.
On one of my first shoots with the Custom SLR strap system (covering the opening of a new unit in a very loud steel mill), I had the Custom SLR strap hanging around my neck (body upside-down) with another body with a factory strap over my shoulder. Ear plugs firmly in place, the drone of the steel mill’s machinery drowned out all but the loudest of sounds and conversations.
Suddenly, I felt a curious vibration pulsating against my tummy. Could it be the courtesy cookies from the mill tour not sitting well with me? Startled, I looked down and realized that the Custom SLR strap camera body’s shutter button was pressing against my stomach, tearing through ten frames per second (that was the vibration) as I stood momentarily oblivious to the photo-foul. After this happened two more times or so, I decided to ditch the C-Loop Strap Mount and thread the Custom SLR Camera Straps directly into the strap loops of my camera. This configuration worked so much better, allowing the camera to sit right-side up around my neck or shoulder as I’m used to.
A series of photos fired off by my stomach.
The Camera Strap with Split Strap Technology is one of the most comfortable straps I’ve ever used. The large, padded surface area of the strap distributes the camera weight across a larger area of your neck or shoulder, eliminating the strain that those factory-provided straps I love so much often cause. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Custom SLR’s strap almost makes the camera feel weightless, as if you’re not carrying anything around your neck at all. I really came to appreciate this while on a fourteen-hour wedding shoot last weekend.
While I never got a chance to go on sticks with with the M-Plate Pro tripod mount, I did confirm that the unit mates flawlessly with my Manfrotto 322RC2 tripod head.
Despite some clashes with my personal preference for straps and how they’re mounted, Custom SLR has created a solid product line that is worth a look if you’re in the market to step up to a more flexible strap solution. Whenever I invest in equipment, I always consider whether the gear can be customized or modified to be used differently as required by the job at hand. The fact that I was able to omit the parts of the Custom SLR rig that I didn’t like, and use the ones I did in a different way to make the system work for me makes the Custom SLR product line a winner in my book.
