Time: 1 Hour Cost: $10-15 Parts: Used laptop bag strap, nylon 1″ webbing, various plastic buckles / adjusters, heavy duty thread. Sourcing: Strap – Target, Webbing and buckles – EMS, REI, or any boating supply stores
Note: All of these photos link to Flickr, where some of the photos are annotated with more detail.
In December 2009, Luma Labs introduced the Luma Loop, an over-the-shoulder camera sling system meant to make carrying an SLR easier for long periods of time. The Luma Loop has gotten good reviews, and was definitely interesting to me since I tend to bring my camera out often with heavy glass on it. The system is similar in look and function to Black Rapid’s R-Strap system as well.
I’m also always interested in trying to make things like this on my own whenever possible. Below is a small description and some pictures of my re-made camera sling, a DIY copy of the Luma Loop.
The first part was obtaining a suitable shoulder strap pad. I found a Targus ‘universal’ strap, pictured here:
This strap is sold at Target and various other big retail chains. If you’ve got an old laptop bag around you can probably scrounge parts from that, but the strap that I used is really nice and was cheap (< $10). It also coincidentally has a built-in pocket for a memory card, which fits a CF card perfectly:
The main part of the Sling consists of the shoulder pad and some black nylon webbing, that is adjustable for length.
It also has a male side of a 1″ plastic buckle on it, that is free to slide along the length of the loop. For the camera-side connection we made two different options:
The split-ring adapter works well for connecting to the normal camera strap location on top of the SLR body. The cord inside of it was stitched together around the buckle and underneath the webbing, to make sure it’s secure. The adapter on the right is a spare for testing. Here is a photo of the split-ring adapter installed:
The third adapter (and the one I’m using currently) is made to attach to the tripod socket on the bottom of an SLR body. It’s a few inches long and has a grommet installed. A standard 1/4-20 screw secures it to the tripod socket:
The mount is free to swivel, and I like the way the camera hangs.
Here is an overview of the system completed:
As a final step, we made an elastic loop that secures the loose part of the adjusted strap. I left it long so that I had extra length for wearing it over large coats, etc. You can see the elastic in the last photo. The full photoset is available here.
This is my first photo / gear howto, but I’ve written a number of them about various procedures on cars.
Camera Sling / Luma Loop Re:Make
Time: 1 Hour
Cost: $10-15
Parts: Used laptop bag strap, nylon 1″ webbing, various plastic buckles / adjusters, heavy duty thread.
Sourcing: Strap – Target, Webbing and buckles – EMS, REI, or any boating supply stores
Note: All of these photos link to Flickr, where some of the photos are annotated with more detail.
In December 2009, Luma Labs introduced the Luma Loop, an over-the-shoulder camera sling system meant to make carrying an SLR easier for long periods of time. The Luma Loop has gotten good reviews, and was definitely interesting to me since I tend to bring my camera out often with heavy glass on it. The system is similar in look and function to Black Rapid’s R-Strap system as well.
I’m also always interested in trying to make things like this on my own whenever possible. Below is a small description and some pictures of my re-made camera sling, a DIY copy of the Luma Loop.
The first part was obtaining a suitable shoulder strap pad. I found a Targus ‘universal’ strap, pictured here:
This strap is sold at Target and various other big retail chains. If you’ve got an old laptop bag around you can probably scrounge parts from that, but the strap that I used is really nice and was cheap (< $10). It also coincidentally has a built-in pocket for a memory card, which fits a CF card perfectly:
The main part of the Sling consists of the shoulder pad and some black nylon webbing, that is adjustable for length.
It also has a male side of a 1″ plastic buckle on it, that is free to slide along the length of the loop. For the camera-side connection we made two different options:
The split-ring adapter works well for connecting to the normal camera strap location on top of the SLR body. The cord inside of it was stitched together around the buckle and underneath the webbing, to make sure it’s secure. The adapter on the right is a spare for testing. Here is a photo of the split-ring adapter installed:
The third adapter (and the one I’m using currently) is made to attach to the tripod socket on the bottom of an SLR body. It’s a few inches long and has a grommet installed. A standard 1/4-20 screw secures it to the tripod socket:
The mount is free to swivel, and I like the way the camera hangs.
Here is an overview of the system completed:
As a final step, we made an elastic loop that secures the loose part of the adjusted strap. I left it long so that I had extra length for wearing it over large coats, etc. You can see the elastic in the last photo. The full photoset is available here.
This is my first photo / gear howto, but I’ve written a number of them about various procedures on cars.