Around the wrist or neck?

Around the wrist or neck?

  • Wrist strap

    Votes: 148 27.7%

  • Neck strap

    Votes: 239 44.8%

  • Hippy strap

    Votes: 8 1.5%

  • Depends

    Votes: 96 18.0%

  • None of the above

    Votes: 43 8.1%
  • Total voters
    534
Depends on the weight of the camera. Mostly around the neck, sometimes on the wrist.

My IIIf is light enough to hang around my neck without bouncing off my gut. My Trip 35 goes around my wrist for quick shooting. Heavier cameras go around my neck/shoulder like a purse.
 
FrankS said:
I like to have the choice, so I use a neckstrap and wrap it around my wrist 3 times if I want the camera in hand.
Click to expand...


This was the HCB style, and all proportions maintained, mine too. But last days, street photography is changing my style. Until now I used a rather 'confrontation' approach. Now I am enjoying the forbidden pleasures of snaking.

I have found that holding the camera by its nose (lens and hood mainly and a bit by its lower casting) is extremely conspicuous. The very action of holding the camera this way, conceals half of it, or more. Using a wrist for safety (left hand for a right hand user) adds to conspicuity. Because when you are concealing such big chunks of your camera, the strap starts to become an out-standing feature.

I have the personal feeling that by holding the camera this way, I am perceived when seen as a less dangerous fellow, than when carrying the camera from my neck. Now if we give it a bit of thought, only big SLR digitals are used with straps, amateurs with small digis are not using straps like in the past. I.e. the strap in the eyes of the people is a sign of the pro.

Of course you cannot walk with a 650 grams brick wristed to your hand, for a long period of time, then if you like wrists, you will have to have both wrist and strap easily detachable.

Well, all these is new and tentative. Let's see what happens next.

Cheers,
Rubem
 
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I was about to start a thread on what I experienced today on using wrist straps, and then I saw this poll thread.

I was carrying a Contax IIIa with a 50 Sonnar, in addition to a Leica Standard with viewfinder [that kept on moving, suggesting it may be falling off] and a Canon 35mm lens. It was a bad experience having both cameras with wrist straps. I had to juggle around the cameras from hand to hand whenever I needed to change aperture settings or speeds or trying to put the viewfinder back in place. Imagine if I had to use my handheld meter!

I voted "it depends".

If you use one camera that is not excessively heavy [with the lens], then using a wrist strap can be very effective for quick handling photography.

When trying to have two cameras ready for photography, as I did today,then it is a pain in the wahoo to carry two cameras with wrist straps.

When a camera is heavy, you may get wrist pain afterwards, even with one camera.

My suggestion: have both types of straps attached to the cameras. When needed, use the neck strap to "park" a camera until needed, while holding the other camera on its wrist strap. It works!
 
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I find that the idea of being "unobtrusive" with a RF is kind of lost when you use a neck strap. It puts the camera on display in your midsection. That is why I use a wrist strap on my RF's but for a SLR I totally agree, cant be walking around all day with a 3-4 pound setup and not have some relief from the weight.
 
Me too clumsy

Me too clumsy

Destroyed my Canon GIII w a wrist strap. Stumbled and shattered the camera against the sidewalk trying to break my fall. NO MORE WRIST STRAPS FOR ME.
 
I make my own camera straps, they go over my shoulder and across my chest, so they are out of the way on the side and stay close to my body, but I can swing them up if I need to.

2060282936_6b825c5dee_o.jpg


The strap is made from Grosgrain ribbon (Stronger), doubled up and stitched with a curtain pocket, which I feed on the rings. Total < $5 at my local craft store (for 10X as much ribbon as I needed), and if it starts to fray or I get tired of the color, I can just make a new one.

It's been surprisingly durable; the one in the photo is the first one I made 6 months ago.
 
I use the neck strap wrapped around my wrist three times except when loading film or chowing down some food on the go. i voted wrist strap, but its a neck strap. I just always shoot using it wrapped around the wrist.
 
I treated myself to a nice Artisan and Artist strap the other day, a nylon adjustable model with a wide neck band with their logo printed in clear non-skid letters.
I didn't realize it at the time, but it's *really* long.
The camera strap, when worn diagonally across the chest, puts the camera well below my belt, at about my hip.

My initial reaction was to cut it down to a more normal size, but I've found I really like using a long strap, as it is very easy to lift the camera to shoot.

I definitely cannot hang a camera just around my neck anymore as it causes too much neck pain. Over the shoulder doesn't work well when I carry a messenger-style bag. (My M3 slipped off my shoulder the other day while getting out of a taxi and crushed my favorite 35mm lens under the weight of the body.)

Across the chest wasn't really comfortable before as they are too-often too tight to comfortably lift the camera and shoot on short notice.

Strange about the long strap: Just a few nights before I had unwittingly bought it, I was talking to a guy in a bar who noticed my M3. It turns out this guy had been a staffer at Magnum when Koudelka was sleeping on their sofa and this guy mentioned that Koudelka used an M3 like mine and that he used to wear it on a very long strap...
 
wrist or neck ?

For me both.

The wrist is much more conspicuous and symple. The strap for long walks, as holding a camera from my wrist for longer than an hour it becomes painfull.

Thus, my daily Kievs are permanently wristed, and a strap in my back pack.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
As I see it, a strap is there to catch the camera if my grip on it slips. With a neck strap, I always hold the camera in my right hand, anyway. It's no fun walking around with a camera bouncing off your chest.

I tend to prefer a wrist strap, and, again, always hold the camera. Dangling a camera from your wrist is an invitation to whack it against something hard.
 
FrankS said:
I like to have the choice, so I use a neckstrap and wrap it around my wrist 3 times if I want the camera in hand.
Click to expand...

Yeah, me too. Seems like an obvious answer.

Sometimes, when I'm standing on a street corner, waiting for a scene to unfold, I actually want to look like a tourist with a camera hanging from my neck, and then I'll shoot that way. Other times I'd rather walk around with my camera ready and waiting in my hand, so the neckstrap is wrapped around my wrist.
 
But what do you do if you have to use a john, or happen to buy a cup of coffee or.......? I bought a Gordy wrist strap recently, and have moved it around from camera to camera, trying to figure out a good combo. I find a wrist strap limits any simple daily activity (getting my wallet out of my pocket, getting money out of said wallet, shaking hands with a neighbor, etc). A camera with no strap feels great in the hands, but you're gonna have to set it down sometime, and you might not like where you have to set it down (refer to the first example in the first sentence).
 
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