I have over the years owned quite a few LowePro camera bags. In fact I can say that I still have all of them and they are all still in very good condition and still in use today. I chalk this up to the fact that LowePro makes top quality products. Recently I got my hands on one of the LowePro’s Speedster camera straps, I had high hopes for this strap in the end I found myself disappointed.
It is a lightweight but attractive camera strap and is made from tough woven nylon webbing with rubber woven-in thread for anti-slip wear. It has quick release buckles which according to LowePro makes for quick camera changing. It is 1.4-inches wide and has a maximum length of 45.25-inches.
After using the Speedster strap for little over a month I have to say that it is comfortable to wear not as comfortable as the padded camera straps I normally use but still comfortable. However, it has two problems that bother me, bother me to the point I won’t use it.
First I find the quick release buckles to be very worrisome. While you do need to press in on both sides of the buckles to release the camera I can just see getting in to some tight places or tangled in some tree branches or bushes that just might cause it to pop loose. Now I have no doubt that such an occurrence is a one in a million type of thing, but it bothers me enough that I find myself checking the buckles quite often, I wish besides pressing in on both sides that there was a switch you had to slide first this allows you to press them in. It just makes me uncomfortable and is a trust issue. Personally being able to change cameras in this fashion is not enough a bonus for it to be worth the worry, at least for me. I am perfectly happy taking the entire strap and camera off of me when I need to change cameras.
My second complaint is a more practical one and one that occurred with me quite often. The straps that you thread through the strap braces on your camera (either with the metal rings (included) or with the flat narrow woven nylon) are very stiff thanks to the two buckles on each side, these buckles are what holds the narrow nylon woven web fabric once you have threaded it through the strap braces on your camera or to hold the metal rings if you attach your strap that way.
They are so stiff that they stick out and while this is not a problem when the camera is hanging around your neck as the weight of the camera pulls them and the strap works and looks as you would expect, it is very much a problem if you unhook the camera using the quick release buckles. In fact they not only stick out when you go to set the camera down or put it in your bag I found that the plastic buckles often banged in to the LCD screen on the top of my camera and sometimes on the big one on the back. If not these then other places on the camera body. I am very concerned about scratches and scuff marks on my camera body and LCD screens.
At best these stiff strap segments make your camera look like “Pippy Longstocking” (see Image Gallery for photos), at worst it is scratching and scuffing up your camera. While I think the two buckles per side make for a very secure hold they need to make these sections of the nylon webbing longer by a factor of two so that the buckles can be spaced further apart making the strap more limp and flexible and less likely to bang in to your camera at all.
I don’t know if the strap is safe to use with just one buckle per side or not. No information on any of this is included with the strap. I guess they assume you can figure it all out. A trial and error approach with such things can be very expensive if you try the wrong way and the camera falls. A small instruction sheet needs to be included letting you know how they intended you to use the strap and the securing buckles. I am going to assume that since the strap comes with all four of these buckles fastened that they are intended to be used.
I have tried to include photos in the Image Gallery below that shows all of this. In the end you have to decided if these are problems for you or not. For me they are a problem and I will not be using the strap any longer. While I think LowePro makes the best camera bags I think they need some work on their straps a few words of instruction would be a great start. |
