Rigu's Blog

News from the UK's top camera strap specialist

Author: admin

  • Large Handheld Stretch Filter Available Now

    Stretch has been one of my favourite filter styles since it was introduced at Rigu a couple of years ago. It’s great at making your subject the centre of attention and artfully removing distractions from the sides of your composition.

    Other people must like it too, because my suppliers keep making new form factors for Stretch. From the screw-in version that was initially available in a 77mm filter thread, then multiple screw-in sizes, a handheld version, and now in a larger handheld with 100mm wide glass.

    If you’re a photographer or videographer that’s working with larger lenses that have big front elements, this sizing is going to make working with Stretch a lot more accessible and usable in your projects. The standard sizes were probably a bit too small in some cases, forcing you to use the full blurring sections in all your compositions. A larger filter with a 30mm wide flat section (where the image will appear “normal”) gives considerably more wiggle room to fit your subject/subjects into the frame and use the blurred sections a bit more subtly. Or pull it away from the lens a bit to get more blurring into the frame and use the filter more aggressively.

    This works both ways too, if you’re working with smaller lenses, then this might not be the right solution for you. When I was playing around with this 100mm wide filter and with a small lens on my DSLR I found in some cases I couldn’t see the blurring effect at all depending on my focal length. It’s no problem though, since the smaller version exists, so now Rigu has a range that’s suitable for a wider range of lenses and uses.

    Check out all our Stretch filters here.

  • Camera Strap Lug Bumpers Available Now

    Camera Strap Lug Bumpers on a slate tile with a camera in the background

    Here’s a quick little product announcement: lug bumpers!

    If you use a strap with metal split rings, you’ll probably know the issue. After a while, the metal rubs against the camera body and starts to wear the paint or finish around the strap eyelets.

    These lug bumpers sit between the ring and the camera, acting as a soft barrier. They’re cut from offcuts of leather from strap production, so it’s a nice way to use material that would otherwise just sit in a box or get thrown away.

    They’re available in both genuine leather and vegan leather options, and in a mix of colours.

    One of the interesting things about the vegan leather is that they’re not made of “PU leather” (aka plastic), they’re 95% olive, produced from the waste left over from olive oil production. It’s a more sustainable leather alternative that looks and feels nice, whilst also being strong. As it is quite a thin leather I’m not convinced it would work as a camera strap, but it’s very suitable for lug bumpers and hopefully some other accessories too.

  • A new toy in the workshop

    Rigu has been offering vegan leather camera straps for a few years, and over the past year I’ve been slowly learning more about leathercraft. It’s an interesting process which I’ve always gone through with an eye on eventually offering Rigu’s own leather camera straps after over a decade of importing and selling other brands.

    Die Cutter Press

    I naively started out thinking “well, it can’t be that expensive.” I was kind of right, getting setup with a minimal leathercrafting kit isn’t that expensive, but as with most hobbies, once you go down the rabbit hole there is always something else to buy.

    I realised that there are certain things I can do, and certain things I can’t; and if I want to sell a high-quality product then I can’t rely entirely on my hands and eyes to ensure a good finish. Creating jigs and guides, or using machines where needed is key to offering products that are consistent. This in turn means that I should make less mistakes in the manufacturing process, which means less wastage, and ultimately lower prices for customers. It’s still a very hands-on process, but trying to remove some aspects of human error whilst keeping it a “handmade” product seems like a good balance to strike.

    The die cutter above arrived this week. It’s a big heavy pair of metal plates which your put your material (such as leather) and cutter between, pull the lever, listen for the satisfying cut, and then you’ve got a perfectly shaped piece of leather for your project. For something like camera straps where there’s quite a lot of repetition between products I can see this being really useful.

    Whilst I’m having fun playing around with this die cutter and the new cutting method it brings to the workshop, really this is an investment in providing more value to customers when I eventually begin to offer in-house leather camera straps at Rigu.

  • Wuben C3 Torches Restocked

    The Wuben C3 is a workhorse of a torch/flashlight, which is why I stock it four our light painting photography starter kits.

    I think it ticks all the boxes for newbies and experienced light painters; providing all the fundamentals in an affordable package.

    • Excellent build quality
    • 4 lighting modes (3 different strengths and a strobe function)
    • Long-lasting battery with internal USB-C charging
    • Crucially, a good sized head for attaching to the LPB universal connector

    I’ve always been a bit of a reluctant torch seller, but after years of being asked by customers what torch I’d recommend, I felt like I had to offer an option to people. There are definitely other options out there which are better at specific tasks for (check out Stephen Knight’s incredible roundup), but remember that Rigu is a camera accessories shop, not a flashlight shop, so offering a solid and reliable all-rounder was my #1 aim when picking what to stock.

  • Bringing Back The Blog

    Whilst Rigu news has to go where the audience is, and that’s usually Facebook, Instagram, or X, I think it might be fun to get back into blogging about the business.

    At the very least, it will give me a record of what is happening at Rigu that’s on my own platform, not one owned by a billionaire, or fed to people through an algorithm. If you’re here reading this, it’s because you want to be, not because an equation decided you might like it.

    Quick story about the photo above. I was walking around the Ginza district in Tokyo taking photos in early 2024 when an Irish man called Enda shouted “I know, I know, I’ll take your photo with your camera!” He rushed over and let his bike crash to the ground, we had a chat about why I was wandering around Ginza on my own, and he gave me a beer from his bag, encouraging me to have it on the metro ride back to my hotel.

    It was a bit of an odd encounter, but it was great to chat to someone after almost a week of being in China & Japan and not having any conversations beyond ordering food & drink.

  • New iMo straps available now

    New iMo straps available now

    The range of cotton and neoprene DSLR camera straps available from iMo has expanded with a recent delivery of stock. This takes the range of straps available from this fun Hong Kong based design company to 30, with a wide range of patterns and styles available.

    As always with iMo, you get comfort and style with a strap that is strong enough to carry any camera setup. Each strap has been tested to carry more than 40kg, and I think you’ll agree that if you camera body and lens weigh more than 40kg, you’re probably not going to wear it around your neck or on your shoulder.

    funky skull imo camera strap

    I swap around my camera straps quite a lot as I like to test out a few different items from the site, but I do frequently return to the neoprene backed straps from iMo as they’re so comfortable. Having the quick release integrated into the strap is also really convenient if you’re out with your tripod doing some long exposures and don’t want the strap in the way or flapping around in the wind.

    Rigu is the only seller of iMo products in the UK, making it the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to buy one of their colourful and fun straps. Check out the range here.

  • iMo straps are back at Rigu!

    iMo straps are back at Rigu!

    Rigu has the largest selection of camera straps available in the UK. I think it might be the biggest in Europe, but there are some rope strap manufacturers who claim more as they can custom make more colourways. It’s not a competition, but I’m proud to have around 300 different camera straps ready to be dispatched and sent to photographers.

    Even with that many straps available, I still see gaps that need filling in the range, and areas that need more choices. Neoprene straps were one such area.

    Neoprene is a great material to use for a camera strap. It’s soft, comfortable, and it’s pretty strong too. It does have a couple of cons to balance out those pros; it stretches, and it’s usually just one colour (which is a bit boring).

    imo camera strap

    iMo straps take a neoprene base layer, and then add a patterned top layer of material. This ensures that you get the benefit of the comfortable neoprene layer, whilst also having an attractive strap that doesn’t stretch. They’re strong too, having been tested to hold up to 40kg, which is far more than you’d want to carry around your neck. iMo also make cotton tape straps, and leather straps.

    If you’ve been a Rigu customer for a long time, you aren’t crazy, iMo was previously available on the site 5-7 years ago. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have stopped stocking their straps, as I really do like them and think they offer something that has been missing from the shop for a while, especially with their latest designs.

    imo camera strap

    Since I knew what to expect from iMo, it meant that I didn’t need to do my usual sample order for a “new” brand, and was able to get in a larger number of models than I typically would. There are 23 different models available in the shop at the moment, which represents most of their range.

  • Simplr F1 Ultralight Camera Strap available now (+ restocks!)

    Simplr F1 Ultralight Camera Strap available now (+ restocks!)

    I recently received a box of camera straps from Simplr, restocking their range to make all their models available again at Rigu.

    In the box was a new item, the F1 Ultralight. Simplr’s straps tend to be pretty minimalist already, but this one takes it to the next level. Here’s what JP from Simplr has to say about it:

    If the F1 had a mutant superhero baby, it would be the F1ultralight.

    Combine the F1’s expedition-grade construction, quick-adjustment tab, and streamlined design — with even more breathtaking lightness and slimmer proportions — and you’ve got the featherweight champion of camera straps.

    With durable 3/4″ wide webbing and tiny-but-tough acetal hardware, the F1ultralight is strong where it counts. More importantly, it’s small where counts — especially near your hand where it matters most. With zero extra bulk, and sleek lug mount attachment, it’s about as close as you can get to holding a naked camera.

    As the smallest cameras inherit the capabilities of their larger brethren (like the Fujifilm X100 and Sony RX1R series), so too should your camera strap — and that’s exactly what Simplr did with the F1ultralight.

    Rigu is the only distributor of Simplr straps outside the USA, allowing British and European photographers to get their high-quality straps much quicker, and at a lower price than importing them direct from the US.

  • Fractal Filters Restocked

    Fractal Filters Restocked

    They weren’t even close to selling out, but their shelf in the stock room was starting to look a little light, so I got a few dozen more sets in of these creative prism photography filters. Want to see the Fractal Filters in action? I’ve written a couple of articles about using them in very different ways, for dreamy portraits, and in the neon jungle of Tokyo.

    Rigu is the only place outside the US that you can order Fractal Filters. For UK customers this means getting them faster and cheaper than from the US, and the same goes for the EU too, though the difference is slightly reduced (it costs quite a bit to post them to Europe!).

  • Find the right camera strap with these new site categories

    Find the right camera strap with these new site categories

    When Rigu launched it had 10 camera straps available. Today it’s around 300, which is the most in the UK (probably the most in Europe too), catering to almost every kind of photographer.

    Different connection types, styles, and materials mean that Rigu needs to stock a lot of straps to cover what everyone needs, but that can make it harder for people to find what is right for them.

    If you look at the camera straps category on the site, that’s a lot of options. Some people aren’t sure what they want, so are happy to browse and see what’s on offer. Other people know what they’re looking for and want it to be broken down further so they can see what’s available, and what will work with their camera. Rigu has always had a number of categories, but I have felt for a while that this system could be improved to make the growing selection more manageable.

    Over the weekend I created a number of new categories and went through every single strap that is available on the site to re-categorise them. To be frank, it was very boring, but hopefully it will have been a productive few hours if I see people working their way through the site easier.

    These new categories have also allowed me to bring together items in collections that were previously under-represented. Rigu doesn’t have a huge amount of vegan camera straps yet (though this is something I am looking to improve over the next few months), but at least now it is easy for vegan photographers to find a quality camera strap that they can be confident includes no animal products.

    Similarly, I felt it was important to break down the straps in terms of what connection type they have, since if you’re looking for a lug/ring connection strap then there’s no point you looking at flat mounts (even though most of these come with rings which does complicate matters), string loop connection or tripod mount straps. This should make the process of finding the right strap a bit easier for photographers.

    A number of other categories were also added (materials, and styles of strap being the major ones) which I believe should cover most of what people are searching for. If people were searching for it on the site in large enough numbers, I made a category for it, and that seems like a sensible way to deal with this.

    This whole categorisation process is a work in progress and there are other things I would like to try. I would like the ability to combine categories, such as allowing people to choose lug mount straps that are also leather, but this is an additional complication that will take work. I recognise that too many categories might be a bad thing, and that it instead of making it easier, it might make the navigation process more complicated and confusing. It’s a balancing act, and I will be monitoring the stats to see if these new categories are being used and providing value to customers. Only time will tell and if you feel anything is missing or there are other categories that could be useful I’ll consider adding them into the site.