Quick Strap (Q Strap) - Review

While the strap supplied with your Canon, Nikon or even Sony camera may be perfectly adequate for most situations, there are circumstances where it can limit or distract your shooting. If you've ever had the 'official' strap impair the viewfinder, block the lens, tangle around your hand or fatigued your shoulder then there is some likelihood that you've wished for a solution.

The most obvious replacements on the market appear to be from Black Rapid or Sun Sniper, these are very high quality products that will undoubtedly solve your problem. However, this is reflected in their price tags. A Black Rapid RS-7 alone will cost upwards of £60 from most retailers.

So what are the alternatives? You could either buy a cheaper strap that fixes one or two gripes you have with the 'official' strap or you could buy a replica, copy, knock-off or clone of the big names. Whatever you want to call it. The Q-Strap is unquestionably a replica of the aforementioned Black Rapid RS-7, fortunately without a replicated price. From eBay you'll be able to purchase a Q-Strap for £15, or if you don't mind waiting, a bargain buy of £12 from China.

Thrift Store Find - Praktica PLC2

 Like many photography enthusiasts I am always on the lookout for new hardware to add to my collection, you never know when you might get lucky and get an amazing find. Quite recently on a trip to one of the many thrift and charity shops in the area I came across a '70s SLR all in black, my favourite camera colour scheme. I had to have it. After some haggling I got myself a Praktica PLC2 with Pentacon 50mm 1.8 and a Paterson developing tank, all for £5.

Not soon after getting the East German camera home I gave it a good clean, everything appeared to be working fine just as was tested for in the shop. Some of the leather covering was loose, as would be expected from a camera produced in 1975, but a smear of glue fixed that quickly. Unfortunately the paint has also chipped away leaving no traces of the once white PLC2 logo, this seems to be a common problem with Praktica cameras.

The main selling point of this camera back in the day was that the camera could actually read the maximum aperture setting of the M42 mount lenses, this made 'Through The Lens' metering possible for any aperture at any aperture setting. 63,957 of these cameras were produced, I'm happy to have just one sitting at home.