It may seem hard to imagine that you could get excited about a camera strap. Not long ago, I would have agreed with you. Now, all of that has changed. If you haven’t heard of Blackrapid, listen up.

The Blackrapid camera straps come in a few different styles that all work on the same principle. The camera slides along the strap on a heavy-duty, steel swivel snap that clips onto a burly steel eyelet screwed into the tripod socket (of the camera or a long lens mount). The eyelet is backed by a rubber gasket that compresses against the camera body and makes it very unlikely that it would accidentally come unscrewed. Blackrapid recommends moistening the gasket before attaching it to the camera to get an even more snug fit.

Instead of the camera resting against your stomach or ribs, the strap is slung across the body, like a messenger bag and the camera hangs at your hip. The double strap has loops that hang beneath each arm and connect at the shoulder pads. To shoot, you just drop your hand to your side, and the camera is right there. Slide the camera up in front of your eye and shoot away.

If the strap rotates around your body when you lift the camera, an ingeniously simple adjustable bumper on the strap will catch on the swivel snap as you lower the camera and rotate the luxurious shoulder pad back into place. The Blackrapid site has some great videos showing how this works.

The build quality of this gear insures that it will be with you a long time and hardware failure is not an issue.

The event I shot earlier this week was 250 people for 5 hours. Lots of running around was required with the typical heavy f/2.8 lenses on pro bodies. I shot the event alone, so I didn’t have anyone to shlep gear for me. it’s tiring just talking about it. I used the Blackrapid RS DR-1 Double Strap to hang one body on each side like a pair of six-guns.

The DR-1 is essentially two of their single straps mated together (they can be separated and used as sigle straps too!). It has a strap between the shoulder blades to adjust the width, a fastex-buckeled strap across the chest and an elastic strap across the lower back to pull the cameras back and out of the way when they are not in use.

The padded shoulders are similar in feel and look to backpack straps (minus the backpack) and are comfortable for a long shoot with a lot of weight.

Wedding/event/sports photographers and photojournalists will love this rig and benefit from the speed at which cameras can be changed without constantly worrying about a strap slipping off of your shoulder in the heat of the action.

For my last event, the double strap was invaluable without the aid of an assistant. I was able to have a very smooth rhythm moving from shot-to-shot and camera-to-camera — dropping one camera at my side as I simultaneously lifted the other from the other side. The bodies and lenses were not clunking together all night and I didn’t need to carry a bag.

With my 80-200 lens, the strap was attached to the lens’ tripod mount. That kept the camera and lens balanced more or less horizontally. I found that configuration more comfortable than the lens hanging straight down.

For being outstanding in usefulness, ergonomics and build quality, I can recommend this product without reservations. This may be more camera strap than you will need, but it certainly won’t be less.

Check out the RS DR-1 and their other great products at www.blackrapid.com.