Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review

Hello, everybody! Are you that person who takes the extra effort to shine your shoes to a mirror-shine like someone who was in the army? At the same time, you want that said shiny pair of shoes to be functional and wear them each day no matter which clothes you wear. If that’s you, then this strap will probably be a great investment for you.

Introduction:

The Lucky camera strap debuted a few years ago, the company (product) did not make much noise when it came out. In fact, even if you make a search for it today, you won’t get a lot of results, with most of the reviews coming from a few years ago, about the same time it came out. It’s an underdog and I believe it’s worth spreading the word about this product because it’s made in Australia, a good alternative for those who want to stay away from buying products made from a certain troubled country.

The packaging looks upscale but minimalistic, very elegant. However, I think that this is overkill as you can see from the photo – the strap only takes less than half of the box’s area! I’d rather have a smaller box and save that extra money, every dollar counts these days.

Lucky markets itself as a small manufacturer, mostly selling straps and other leather goods. They’re proud of the leather they use that they encourage you to sniff them, as if that’s an indicator of quality. They have a variety of straps that comes in a variety of lengths, widths and colors, they also offer you the option for customizing your strap with your initials. If you ask me, the leather and the nylon used aren’t the reason why I bought their straps, it’s because I’m looking for a solution to my cluttered camera box problem, my straps are taking too much space in my storage! The solution they provided works for me and I will show you how that works.

This is the brilliant part of the design, it’s what makes this strap unique. These are the most expensive part of the whole thing in my opinion, but even with these, I still do not think that the product should cost this much. This is how it works: A is safety lock, it is spring-loaded and it keeps the strap from slipping out of the hook accidentally. B can be turned to lock A, disabling it from being opened. C is a flat nylon hoop, it can be slipped onto the hook, forming a loop that goes through the strap eyelets of your camera.

I’d imagine that the main rival of this thing is the tried-and-tested strap from Peak Design. Both are sold as premium straps and neither of them are cheap, costing 4-5x the asking price of normal straps. Both are innovative and can be considered as further developments of a decades-old design.

(Click to enlarge)

How dos it compare with the popular Peak Design straps? I own 2 straps from either brand and I’ve used them both for some time. Here’s my take.

• The Peak Design straps are made better, at least they feel like they will last longer.
• The Lucky straps are more comfortable, specially when the edges rub against your neck.
• It is faster to swap/change with the Peak Design straps, very good for active scenarios.
• The Peak Design straps offer a baseplate for alternative attachment, vertical or bottom-carry.
• The Peak Design straps require that you buy those expensive loops if you have many cameras.
• The Peak Design straps makes it possible to carry your setup like a sling, to an extent.
• You can easily wash the Peak Design straps if they start to stink.
• The Lucky straps are more economical in the long run if you own several cameras (no loops).
• The Lucky straps are unreasonably overpriced, should cost half of what they’re asking for.
• The Lucky straps are more stylish, and they offer some amount of customization, too.
• There are fewer/smaller metal parts on the Lucky straps so they won’t scratch things as much.
• If you shoot with a classic camera, the Lucky strap will look better.
• You’ll need those triangular/circular strap rings for the Lucky straps, depending on the camera.
• The Peak Design strap has an ecosystem of other gadgets that you can use with it.
• The Lucky straps may less likely to trigger allergies because they’re made from leather.
• Since the Lucky straps are made of genuine leather, they will age better.
• Lucky markets their straps to be capable of being slung over the shoulder, or so they say.
• Lucky claims these to be cut-or-slash-proof but I don’t feel that they’re that durable.
• The Lucky straps claim to be able to support up to 50kg of gear, I am a bit doubtful of it.

That’s at least what I’ve come to realize after using both straps, they’re both adequate, but if I were given another chance I would have gone with the Lucky straps instead because I own and use a lot of cameras. I don’t want to purchase those loops (Peak Design Anchors) for all of them, it’s just not practical! If I own a pair or just 5 cameras, then the Peak Design system would have been a wiser choice.

I bought 2 straps, a slim one and a wider one. I usually carry 2 cameras with me so I need to have at least a pair of them, one for a heavier setup and another for a smaller, lighter one.

Will I recommend this strap? Yes – but only if you own several cameras and you don’t want to store your cameras in the box with the straps taking up plenty of space. You must also have several strap rings, the ones that are ideally triangular, the circular ones work just as well but the the triangular ones are perfect. Most modern non-Nikon cameras have a flat attachment built into recess parts of the camera so this will not be too troublesome, but if you shoot with Nikon and classic cameras then you will need to buy some strap rings, a pair for each camera. I can say that these are great straps and I like them myself, but like a lot of camera accessories, you cannot paint them all with a broad brush.

Did you find this useful? If you did, please share this site with your friends. This is not a sponsored article, I bought the 2 straps with my own funds, giving me the exposure will help me earn a few extra cents that will help me offset the cost of buying these. I hope that my insight and experience with these straps help you decide if this is the correct product for you or not. This is an unbiased review, in the tradition of this website where integrity means more than anything. Until next time, Ric.

Help Support this Blog:

Maintaining this site requires resources and a lot of time. If you think that it has helped you or you want to show your support by helping with the site’s upkeep, you can make a small donation to my paypal.com at richardHaw888@gmail.com. Money is never my main motivation for this blog and I believe that I have enough to run this but you can help me make this site (and the companion facebook page) grow.

Helping support this site will ensure that it will be kept going as long as I have the time and energy for this. I’d appreciate it if you just leave out your name or details like your country’s name or other info so that the donations will totally be anonymous. This is a labor of love and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. Ric.