Camera straps - The usual missing link

I got quite a few cameras. Probably too many, I confess, and there I just said the words. 
Luckily for me that was not what I was not going to discuss right now. Today it's all about those easy-to-forget minor details. Today it's all about camera straps.

Common to many, if not in most of my cameras, have been that they either lack a good old strap, or they are in possession of a rather poor example of the sort. There seems to always be something wrong with them. Some are too wide, most of them are cumbersome to slack out or tighten in, they are getting torn in the wrong places, they might be too stiff or just too much of whatever else bad issues you can come up with. Something just had to be done!

Nikon used to make a quite good, simple and cheap one (oh yes, I'm a cheepskate for sure when it comes to stuff like this), made out of some quite narrow black web or whatever material they were using. I got a few of them hanging on a couple of F3's and a Nikkormat, and I quite like them. The only thing wrong with them would be the "cumbersome to slack and tighten" issue. Everything else with them is actually great. And then I also got a nice and quite soft leather strap (feels expensive, I got it with some other camera) attached to the elder rangefinder from Germany, which is absolutely great. But that's it! Everything else I got is just crap.
I even got a more or less useless (way too stiff black one) leather strap from the very same company who make these rangefinders. That one used to be attached to my M6 and probably cost a fortune out of the pockets of whoever bought it back in the days.
Anyway, most of my cameras have been living their lives in my possession without any strap at all, which annoys me at times as this simple fact sometimes keeps me from picking up a camera to bring along. 

So, what would a cheepskate like me do about that, you may think? 
Well, I have been searching up and down through the WiFi to find some of those old Nikon straps I was talking about, but the last time I checked on the huge marketplace out there they were way too expensive. I would need at least ten of them, and preferably rather 15, but since I quickly figured out that was going to cost me the equal amount to quite a lot of film, I decided to go for a different approach. 

The answer to it all came falling into my lap some time ago now. I found out one day that it was due time to change out a couple of the old ropes attached to my otherwise very good tent. Off I went to the store to buy a good sized coil of some parachute chord or similar. At the very moment I got that in hand, I figured out the obvious answer to my camera-strap nightmares. 
The first strap I made was way too fancy. It took forever to weave it together, it came out way too short and it was not possible to extend or shorten it. It was simply not what I wanted at all. 
I ditched the whole idea for a while until one day a friend of mine stumbled upon this page on the internet as he was actually searching for one of the photographs shown a bit further down the page. The actual snap was taken during that very ugly war you know over in the east some time ago by the owner of the camera you see pictured at the top of the page. It might even have been snapped with this very camera for all I know, but that's not a part of this story at all. You can of course read a lot about it in the article, but that's for a little bit later please.
I immediately fell for this idea of a strap for a number of reasons. Simplicity, cheap, durable, strong, and it had a very convenient ring attached which I knew would come in very handy for me when I walk around on the ship, and even at home as I simply can hook it into a carabiner which I usually carry in my belt and/or on my backpack when I'm out walking. 

A couple of examples. Neat and nice, strong and cheap as chips.

It has also proven very good for hanging my camera inside my cabin when at work during really bad weather. The furnitures inside my cabin are usually being thrown around when the waves are getting nasty, and keeping cameras on top of the couch is usually not a good idea when the situation is like this. Since I started using the new straps my cameras have been hanging safely up there on their hooks in a very nice manner because of this clever little ring tied up in just the right distance from the camera body. Yes, you could also hang the cameras by the strap itself, but there's a huge difference between a large swing and a tiny one, I tell you that much. You can see for yourself below and figure it out, and I'm sure you will agree which one is the better solution. 

Like this!

NOT like this!

I could of course have tied in any ring you would get pretty much anywhere, but as I have served my time in the military I have also thrown my fair share of hand grenades over a stone wall, as you did when you were told to do so back in the days. 
I actually had quite a few of them old rings sitting inside a box, as I collected some of them when our combat training was over. 
I had of course forgot all about them years and years ago, but had quite recently stumbled upon them and nearly thrown them away for good as we were starting the process of clearing the house to make it ready for selling it a few years back. Well, for some reason I did not throw them away, and now I even knew exactly where to find them, so down in the basement I went and picked them all out of the box and started to produce some good camera straps, finally. 

Unbreakable, probably. 

A nice feature with this particular type of ring is that it's quite wide in diameter, and it's made out of material that will not rust. It's not aluminium, and it's not steel either. I guess there has been quite some money put into the choice of material used on this little detail even though it was made for something designed to just blow up. 

The only difference from my version of the strap compared to the old and very simple Vietnam version of it is the fact that my strap is double and can such be extended or shortened as required. It's done in three seconds flat due to a couple of rather clever "sliding knots" I learned years ago when doing something very different standing on deck of my little boat. 
Another difference could be the material in the strap itself. I don't keep a supply of original parachute cord in house, so had to go for a cheaper material. It's plenty strong and durable though.

The solution to one of my previous nightmares turned out to be this simple little knot. Drag in or slack out, and your camera will sit exactly where you want it to.

I have been using these straps for a period of time now, and I simply love them and will most likely make a few more as well. They are simply "the shit", as the young daughters keep on telling me good things are called these days. 

Cool, huh?