Peak Design Slide
Neil wearing the Peak Design Slide in a cross body style
After 5 years, this is still my favourite camera strap. It should be yours too.
In 2019, I bought and reviewed the Peak Design Slide camera strap. I think it may be the best camera strap ever designed…
The premise of the review back then, was that camera manufacturers may produce amazing and expensive image-capture equipment, but for some reason, they cheap out on the straps they supply.
These straps are the very safety net we all rely on when carrying our workhorses, our pride and joy, the fruits of our hard-earned money. So why do the camera manufacturers seem to think it’s ok to include a cheap piece of advertising as a strap, rather than a comfortable, well-thought-out and user-friendly support tool?
My guess is money of course. Cheap to source and like I said, another way to display the brand name.
In the last four years, I’ve changed camera brands, bought and upgraded camera bodies, but still kept my original Peak Design Slide strap. I bought a second Peak Design Slide, the light version, for my X-H2s system. They’re that good.
But why are they that good? Surely a camera strap is just a piece of material that hangs around your neck. There can’t be a need to buy a third-party strap... can there?
First, we need to cover the design of the Peak Design Slide strap. To be honest, the design is everything. It’s so well considered for photographers and I believe that’s because actual photographers founded the company. The designers have got the width of the strap, 45mm, designed so the weight of your equipment never feels tiring even after a long day of carrying. The strap incorporates padding within the body of the webbing. But whereas other strap padding is bulky and obvious, Peak Design uses materials that are slim and don’t intrude on the functions of the strap.
Then there’s the material used. The webbing was specifically chosen, as its construction optimises smooth movement over any clothing, much like car seatbelts. But then, if you want to carry it over your shoulder without movement, the other side of the strap incorporates a pattern of silicon grips to hold it in place.
Adjustments to the length are made simply by lifting the low-profile aluminium and nylon adjusters and sliding them to your own preference. Then we come to the really clever part. Attaching to the camera body is done by utilising the Peak Design anchors. You know how usually, strap connection involves fiddly widths of nylon webbing that you have to feed through the camera lugs, then back on themselves, though the little plastic figure of eight, feed underneath itself, contort your body into the downward facing dog position and chant Om… well not with the Peak Design anchors.
Take the little anchors, which are each load rated to 90kg, and thread them through the camera body lugs. Feed the anchor through its own loop. Now clip the strap to the anchor. Done. Trust me, if I, with one arm and quite a few missing digits can do this, anyone can.
But that’s not where the attachment genius ends. By getting the Peak Design standard tripod plate and screwing it into the tripod mount socket, then attaching an anchor to that, you can clip one end of the strap to that and have a very secure across-body carry style. Carrying your camera like this has two major benefits. Firstly the camera is naturally positioned down and behind you as you’re walking about, reducing your profile and vastly reducing the opportunity of your equipment bashing into objects or people. Secondly, the camera grip naturally falls exactly into place for your hand to lift into position as you see a shot to take.
Other benefits of the across-body carry style include the fact you’re not putting pressure on your neck with the weight of your equipment and it’s also a lot less attractive to potential thieves snatching your camera hanging from just your shoulder.
Because I’ve got the standard plate attached to my camera, I can also use the Peak Design Clutch at the same time as the Slide. This just gives me that little extra grip and comfort if I’m shooting handheld. I don’t have to choose between a shoulder strap or a hand strap, with this incredible system, I can have both and they don’t interfere with each other, or if I put the whole lot on a tripod. Brilliant!
Like I said at the start, I’ve had the Peak Design Slide for five years now. It’s been on different camera bodies as I’ve changed, it’s been across countries and continents with me and it’s still as smooth and comfortable as the day I got it. Peak Design may have shot themselves in the foot here, because I’d definitely buy another one if needed, but I don’t.
If you’ve enjoyed this post and think you too would like to get a Peak Design camera strap, I’ve put a link below to the ones I use. If you do buy one through the link, I may receive a small commission from the sale, which will be hugely appreciated as it helps me make more posts. Thank you.
Amazon - Peak Design Slide
