optech strap

[george m w]

I'll be the first to admit that I love my optech strap. The stretchy neoprene "weight reduction" material really does feel much nicer and makes the camera feel lighter.

However.....sorry if I sound paranoid, but I DO NOT trust those cheesy fastex style quick connects. I have had those kinds of fasteners fail suddenly in the past. There is no way I am going to trust 10 lbs and several thousand dollars worth of gear to those. This is my solution....cut them 99 cent pieces of plastic junk off and replace with "s-biner" brand S clips. Much nicer.

[Jon]

I've hung my 1D3 and 300 2.8 off mine, or same camera with 70-200 2.8 IS and a 580EX. I have no concern about any potential failure of the clips. I'd be more concerned about stitching pulling out, which I have had happen (not on an OpTech strap; someone else's) - fortunately I caught the 1D3 and 300 before they hit the ground (neither the guy I was talking to or I could quite believe it).

[george m w]

Jon,
I guess you've never had one of those style clips fail. I had one of the 2 inch wide fastex buckles fail a few months ago on a Tamrac bag. Lucky I caught it before it hit the ground. I know a lady that manufactures heavy duty cordura bags for packing gear on motorcycles, and I asked her several years ago why she did not use fastex buckles. Her rather heated reply, using very colorful language was that "they break". She didn't word quite that way ! I just won't trust them anymore, especially since there are better alternatives out there. Regarding stitching failing, it usually fails a little at a time, and you see it when you are looking at it. It's been my experience that when hard parts made of plastic fail, they often do so suddenly without warning.

[Jon]

It's easy to say that "stitching fails a little at a time" - that's fine if it fails where it's visible, and if there's a wide stitched area to see. And I've seen the wire gates like on your S-biner pop out and fail, losing what was attached to them as well. The most popular strap on here is the POTN OpTech, and there hasn't been a single member here who's posted a documented case of the buckles on one of them failing. I replace the plastic strap sliders on camera bags with mini-biners (with the solid aluminum bar gate) routinely because I have seen those fail under heavy (40 lb. or so) load. But the OpTech QR clips have been solid. I'd be more inclined to expect the neoprene to split or tear under load before the buckles do.

[ed rader]

I'll be the first to admit that I love my optech strap. The stretchy neoprene "weight reduction" material really does feel much nicer and makes the camera feel lighter.

However.....sorry if I sound paranoid, but I DO NOT trust those cheesy fastex style quick connects. I have had those kinds of fasteners fail suddenly in the past. There is no way I am going to trust 10 lbs and several thousand dollars worth of gear to those. This is my solution....cut them 99 cent pieces of plastic junk off and replace with "s-biner" brand S clips. Much nicer.


frankly i'd be more paranoid about those clips. if i were to replace the plastic QRs i'd use metal split rings like you see on key chains.

ed rader

[george m w]

Jon,
I'm glad to hear there have been no reported failures. That is encouraging.

It would be interesting to do a stress test on half dozen or so to see where the fail point might be. If I'm not mistaken, the strap is rated for up to 15 pounds, which is about a 50% margin of safety for, let's say my 300 plus one series. For whatever it's worth, the S-biners I am using on this application is rated at 25 lbs. I'm probably just being paranoid, as I said in my original post.....it's just that I have had too many light weight plastic parts fail over the years. I have a theory, and I will admit this is TOTAL speculation on my part, because I am not an engineer nor am I a chemist involved in production of plastics.....but my limited observation over the years has been that some plastic materials seem to get brittle and lose strength after a long period of time. Possibly that contributes to failure. Again, I have no empirical data, so no way can I quantify or verify any of that.

I will say the stitching looks well executed in a proper manner on my op tech strap, so I would expect that part to be good. I do see your point on the possibility of the neoprene part failing though, especially if it got accidentally cut partially.

Over the years, I've never had a properly stitched/reinforced joint fail....what I have had ( and have seen, numerours times ) fail is long stitched seams. This is a common fail point on motorcycle rider gear ( leather and textile alike ) in a crash where there are impact forces upon hitting the ground.

Failure anylisis is an interesting science, and of course, it usually comes down to the weakest link in the chain. In my feeble little rookie mind, I saw those buckles as the weak link.....so I cut 'em off ! :D;)

I'm certainly not trying to knock the op tech strap....I really do like using it.