It’s always nice to get a restock from Simplr, topping up the inventory of their excellent minimal camera straps.
In amongst the restocks there was also a new item; the W2 wrist strap.
As you can see it’s a very simple wrist strap with no bells and whistles, just everything you need to keep your camera on your wrist with nothing to get in the way, but built tough and durable so you know you can trust the strap with your precious camera gear.
There was also a small restock of the limited edition Coyote Brown “Relic” F1Ultralight strap. Simplr have made this in coyote brown before, but I think it’s the first time it has been available in the relic fabric, which is a slightly softer nylon that feels a bit more “broken in” when you receive it compared to the standard F1Ultralights.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I’m looking to bring a number of new brands to Rigu over the next few months, making a wider range of camera strap (and other products) available. Hopefully, this will mean that Rigu will have something for everyone, at every budget.
I’ve seen Heavy Leather NYC come up a few times in my travels around the internet and always admired their straps, especially their Slingshot strap (available in black or brown). It was that item that first drew me to the brand and I’m glad to have them on the site now, making Rigu their first ever European distributor.
Slings are something that I feel are a bit underrepresented with it comes to camera straps. A lot of people want to be able to wear a strap across their body, and most standard neck straps are just a little bit too short for that.
If you look for sling straps, the options are typically fairly limited, uninspiring, and very much focused on function rather than looking good. The Slingshot by Heavy Leather NYC is that most unusual combo, form and function. It’s good looks draw on their years of experience crafting guitar straps for people like Prince, Black Sabbath, and Lemmy from Motorhead, whilst also maintaining security by layering the main leather belt on top of nylon. You wouldn’t see it at first glance, but it’s there and it keeps this strap extra secure. The padded shoulder pad keeps this extra comfy, helping you get through a day of shooting.
As I say, Rachael, the owner of Heavy Leather, has a lot of experience with guitar straps and it’s fair to say that it’s mostly a guitar brand. I don’t want to stereotype rock and metal metal as being one thing or aesthetic, but that experience seems to bring something else to the straps when it comes to the design style that I don’t usually get from a camera brand. It’s a look that I haven’t had at Rigu before, and I’m glad to have it.
With Heavy Leather being mostly a guitar brand, it does mean their camera strap range isn’t huge, so I have abandoned my “dip the toe in the water” process that I usually have with new brands, and stocked their entire range from day one. Quantities are relatively limited, but everything is available and this is the best way for me to judge what items people like and get valuable feedback by having everything available.
By making Heavy Leather products available in the UK, Rigu has once again made it easier, faster, and cheaper to get hold of high-quality camera straps that would have otherwise required long waits for customs, import charges, and hassle in the event of needing to deal with customer services. Fundamentally, Rigu aims to make the process of getting cool things easier for photographers, so if you have seen a product and thought “I want it, but I don’t want to have to import it” get in touch and maybe it can become a Rigu product.
Vegan photographers were rightly excited when HoldFast Gear announced their new vegan leather MoneyMaker dual camera harness a couple of months ago, and now it’s available to buy in the UK with no import charges and free tracked delivery from Rigu!
At the start of the year one of my aims for the company to was expand the range of camera straps available, and this included options for vegan photographers. I’m not a vegan, but as a business owner it makes sense for me to cater to a variety of photographers as possible, and I would like to make sure vegans have good options when it comes to camera straps.
The problem with most vegan camera straps is that they just aren’t very good, and their vegan aspect is merely a marketing tool for a cheap plastic camera strap. The reason why Rigu doesn’t have many vegan options is because the vast majority of them are not good enough for me to sell and be confident in the product.
I was really keen to check out the vegan leather MoneyMaker, but as with all new products I have to be careful how and where I invest my money with a brand, even one like HoldFast Gear where I’ve always been impressed with their products. Due to this, I thought it best to play it safe and stick with black and brown options for the vegan leather, rather than something like the neon yellow, as that’s probably a bit more niche in terms of appeal.
As you can see from the photos, the vegan leather MoneyMaker is very, very similar to the standard leather version. In terms of functionality there are a couple of differences. There is no version available with D-rings, all vegan MoneyMakers have no D-rings. The sliders (the part at the bottom of the harness that attaches to your camera) are not adjustable, as they are on a standard MoneyMaker. In my experience, it’s rare that people need to alter the length of the sliders on their MoneyMaker, so I don’t think that this will have too much of an impact on most people.
Other than those two things, it is functionally the same and will give the same comfort, convenience and improvements to workflow that the standard leather version would provide to a photographer.
One thing I was concerned about when placing my stock order was what the material would feel like. I’m yet to find a “vegan leather” that feels like actual leather, and that remains the case with the vegan leather MoneyMaker, but I suppose that’s not really the point of the product.
This are trying to recreate chicken nuggets for vegans so that it tastes like a chicken nugget. HoldFast aren’t trying to replicate their normal camera harness, they’re making a new product that appeals to a wide range of people whilst also meeting the needs of vegans.
It doesn’t really feel like leather, and it definitely doesn’t smell like leather. There’s a slight amount of texture on the material that is similar to the random crinkles, creases, and variations that you would expect from a MoneyMaker, but it’s not going to fool anyone into thinking it’s the real thing.
In my opinion there was no point in them trying to recreate that look and feel because it’s not currently possible as far as I’m aware, though there are some really cool projects out there which are getting much closer. Maybe they could have produced something that looked similar, but it wouldn’t have had the same durability and product lifetime (which is a major reason for picking a HoldFast product over the copycats, their harnesses last a long, long time).
For that reason I’m glad they went in the other direction and produced a MoneyMaker that is all-weather, durable, and wipe-clean. Now, as well as appealing to vegans with avoiding animal-based products, they have a product that can work well for extreme sports photographers, sailors, and anyone that works with their cameras in poor and changeable weather. Matt Swaggart (HF founder) even says that if you were to write on these harnesses with a sharpie pen it would just wipe right off. I don’t necessarily recommend that you write on your harness, but it does get across the point that this is a great option for photographers working in harsh environments where they wouldn’t want to go with a leather camera harness.
As ever, it’s important to remember that my company Rigu is the UK’s leading seller of HoldFast Gear products, and I’m a big fan of their company. It’s natural that I’m going to be positive about the new vegan leather MoneyMaker, but I do think that as a product it is something different that should appeal to both vegans and a variety of other photographers and I’m eager to see how people in the UK react to it.
Rigu has the widest selection of HoldFast Gear products in the UK, at prices that are considerably cheaper than importing them yourself from the US, and without the hassle of paying for customs & import duties, with free tracked delivery.
As some of you will know, whilst I can’t get to the office due to the coronavirus my brother Neil is sending out orders to make sure Rigu is running almost as normal. As well as having his own job, and doing mine at the moment, Neil is also a member of the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team.
The LAMRT are a group of volunteers that go out in all weathers and at all times of day to help people that have been injured or got lost on the mountains. They are all volunteers with no members receiving payment for their work, and they receive no funding from the government.
As part of the celebrations to mark the teams 50th anniversary, they have released some Rescue Team Trumps cards. These are fun cards that will give them a fundraising boost whilst also helping people (especially younger mountaineers) learn about being safe and prepared for a day in the hills.
The team do not have an ecommerce system setup, so Rigu was asked to sell the cards for them. This is of course not being done for Rigu’s profit, and it allows them to benefit from piggybacking on my system to give them volume discounts on postage, payment processing, and packaging. This allows them to provide the cards at a lower price to supporters whilst also maximising their fundraising efforts.
If you are a photographer that spends time in the Lake District and may well find yourself carried off a mountain by my brother and the rest of the team, please do consider ordering a pack of cards.
Earlier this week I received a big, heavy box from HoldFast Gear. I was able to restock just about everything that needed it, taking the quantity of MoneyMakers (original, skinny, and solo) in the stock room to over 150. Compared to when Rigu started out that’s fairly incredible, and hopefully this level of stock will see us safely through the start of wedding season without items going out of stock.
A new item was also added to the lineup. The brass version of the new quiet HoldFast clip is now available in the shop.
