Day 13: Today's Pick — A $16 Camera-Strap Anchor That Saved My Camera

My camera lived around my neck for twelve years before I bought a $16 four-pack of Anchor Links. I now don't know how I tolerated the previous setup. This is going to be a brief, useful post about a small bit of plastic and cord.

What they are

Tiny bits of high-strength braided cord with a flat bead on the end and a small plastic socket on the other side. You loop the cord through the strap eyelets on your camera. The bead clicks into a matching socket on your strap. To remove the strap, you press the socket release; it pops off in a second.

The full system is four anchors plus two sockets, $16 from Peak Design, fits any camera with strap eyelets.

What problem this solves

Several problems, actually:

1. Strap-swapping. Want to use a wrist strap for one shoot, a sling for another, a neck strap for travel? Without anchors, you spend ten minutes unthreading and re-threading a fabric loop through a metal eyelet. With anchors, you spend two seconds.
2. No-strap mode. When your camera is on a tripod or in a bag, the strap dangles. With anchors, the strap pops off and you stash it.
3. Quick-detach for tabletop work. Macro photographers and product photographers will get this immediately.

What it doesn't solve

It is not a quick-release plate. It does not let you swap between camera and tripod. (You want an Arca-Swiss plate for that.) It just decouples your strap from your body.

The reliability question

I have been using these for two years on three cameras. Two of them are bodies I've owned for more than a decade. The anchors are rated to 200lb of pulling force. My heaviest camera kit is 4.5lb. Math: I am safe.

People will tell you horror stories about cord-based attachment systems failing. I have yet to see a verified failure of an Anchor Link cord that wasn't visibly worn through. They are designed to show wear (the cord has color-coded inner strands; if you can see red, the cord is worn). Replace them once a year on heavy-use cameras and you're fine.

What I'd do differently

I would buy these earlier. I would buy a 6-pack so I had spares. I would put a set on the camera I gave my niece for her birthday so she'd have the same easy strap-swapping convenience.

A small confession

I am not a Peak Design loyalist on most of their other products. I find their bags overpriced and their wrist strap fussy. But the Anchor Link system is a small, well-designed, durable thing that does exactly one thing extremely well. They've been making this exact part for over a decade, and it has gotten lightly better each year. That is a healthy market signal.

Buy the four-pack.

Tomorrow: a podcast about birds that has, for the first time in my life, made me interested in birds.