My $9 DIY Camera Sling Strap

Sling strap seems to be all the fuzz. It’s no surprise, though – it’s easy, comfortable, and certainly different (remarkable) when compare to traditional camera straps. My friend [Rolo AKA Dunksrnice] and [Adrienne] have purchased one from [BlackRapid]. They love it.

With all the positive feedback on the strap, I decided to give it a try (my old straps have been giving me neck aches after a long day of shooting). Since I’m a big DIY fan, I tried to recreate the strap with a limited budget – how about 9 bucks?

First phase is research.
I wanted to understand the concept and its fundamentals:
-Price varies – but tend to be more pricey than expected (given that majority of us use default straps given by the manufactures, which is pretty uncomfortable around the neck.)
-Idea behind the sling straps is to attach the strap at the bottom of the camera, taking the place of the tripod mount – leaving the lens face down, creating an easier access to shoot, and allowing the user to wear the strap across the shoulders(like a side back pack.)

Here are some on the market:

↑ comes with no strap, just the screw and place for traditional straps.

↑Cool looking strap – would complement really well with classic/vintage looking SLR/DSLRs.

↑Perhaps the most popular sling straps – BlackRapids.

After looking through some of the best straps out there, I got the basic idea on how to construct one – screw + hook + strap. Concept’s simple, majority of the brands then spend time on refining the parts.

This will only take you 15 minutes.

Stuff you need:

↑I’ll carefully explain each. You can get EVERYTIHNG (except for the strap) at Home Depot. Though, it might be even cheaper if you purchase some of those things online.

First, the obvious:

↑This is a strap I bought in [Japan when I last visited]. Love it. Kit strap would work, too. ANY strap works.

2:

↑This will be used to hold the hook in place.

3:

↑Same idea – holding the hook in place. Also to not damage the camera between the mount and the hook. Make sure it’s rubber and not metal – it’s resilient nature’s the key.

4:

↑Cool thing about the camera mounts is that they’re all universal – fits the 1/4″ screw. This will be serve as the fastener. I bought the 2″ because I couldn’t find anything shorter.

Lastly:

↑The connector for the strap and the screw. You can use ANY connector as well, but I would suggest having one with the end is rotatable:

↑When I want to install the hook to the mount, I wouldn’t want to spin the strap, too. Also, without the rotation feature, the connector’s might get stuck with the hook when walking around and the force might slowly unscrew the hook. Last thing you want is to drop your camera.

See what I mean:

↑With a static connector, it’s fairly easy to tangle the strap when screwing the hook to the mount.

Place one thing on top of another:

↑After some quick trials and errors, I realized you need 2 rubber washers to make seal the mount (with the 2″ length hook. If you decided to buy other types of hook, you’re going to have to try things to see what fits best.)

Connect:

BAM:

There ya go:

Some issues with all the sling straps – 1.) you can no longer place your camera flat on a table or whatever when it’s installed (No matter how small you make the fastener.)

2.) It’s a pain in the ass to hook it back to a tripod. Though, BlackRapid has a fastener that can be used with the tripod mount, except you’ll be bring that mount with you everywhere.

And there’s a 3rd issue with this DIY sling – since it’s made out of many pieces, it’s a bit annoying to reinstall it on other cameras or just uninstalling it – one way to solve it is to clue the fastener parts together.