I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Camera sling is the way to go to carry your cam­era. If it works for the army, it’ll work for everyone.

I did my share of research before I made my pur­chase. By research, I mean about closely watch­ing half a dozen YouTube video review and read­ing good, bad, stu­pid, but often, hon­est com­ments from some dis­cus­sion forums and weblog.

The Black Rapid actu­ally came to my atten­tion when I was research­ing for a Luma Loop alter­na­tive; I was try­ing to observe why would they pre­fer a non-Luma prod­uct, and Black Rapid, by their share of noise have gained some viral atten­tion on YouTube and photo weblogs, even users I have never met, seen, or heard before, but they seem to have gained trac­tion too.

The Luma, on the other hand, came to me rather qui­etly. Basically I dis­cov­ered I would need a sling strap as a redun­dant backup to my then-new Capture Camera Clip, and I remem­bered an old post I read about the Loop, and thus began my ‘research’.

My con­clu­sion was clear. I need some­thing sim­ply invis­i­ble, so against their rec­om­men­da­tion, I actu­ally pre­ferred the LoopIt — the non-padded, smaller ver­sion of the Loop — than it’s big­ger brother, the Loop v.2. I didn’t even bother to con­sider any­thing else know­ing how par­al­lel my believe and Luma’s approach are. Everything else don’t mat­ter to me. (At one point, a Black Rapid evan­ge­list even offered to give some of their straps for free. I dis­creetly declined.)

I made the pur­chase last March, and I’ve been hap­pily using it along with my also then-new, Goruck GR1, Capture Clip, Canon EOS 7D, even my big-shot Canon lens, the old EF 80–200 ƒ/2.8L.

Until Black Rapid was awarded a patent related to this prod­uct, and some­how Luma was cor­nered to dis­con­tinue the Loops:

In short, the idea of a slid­ing cam­era sling isn’t an amaz­ing new inven­tion. It’s just a really good idea that’s been around for a while and which has been iter­a­tively devel­oped. Neither we nor our lawyers believed that the USPTO would grant a patent for the claims related to this con­cept. It was a sur­prise, then, when our com­peti­tor was granted a patent cov­er­ing the con­cept on November 1^st, 2011. To say that we’re dis­ap­pointed that the USPTO couldn’t find the prior art around the idea is an understatement.

I’m sad­dened for this to hap­pen to the Luma Labs for they are mak­ing such a great prod­uct, and for Black Rapid to seize a com­mon prod­uct and use it to kill com­pe­ti­tion. Free mar­ket means we as con­sumers are free to choose, and the reward goes to those who makes bet­ter prod­ucts. And today, more and more excel­lent prod­ucts come from smaller, pri­vate com­pa­nies mainly with pas­sion as their mantra. This patent mumbo-jumbo kills the magic and such free­dom to choose, and it is sim­ply unfair.

I am excited, how­ever, by Luma’s rigor spirit to fight it with ‘rein­ven­tion’ instead of a mean­ing­less, time-wasting, soul-killing bat­tle in the court­room, and there’s noth­ing bet­ter to progress than the desire to move on with the most pos­i­tive way from a less pos­i­tive sit­u­a­tion. There’s noth­ing to bet­ter power progress than that very spirit.