Marco Ryan – Travel and Landscape photography
I bought a Cotton Carrier really on the recommendation of a couple of photographers that I respect raving about them. And I love it – or rather I love part of it.
For those of you not familiar with the Cotton carrier – here’s a picture from their website on the left – it is a lightweight chest harness that securely locks your camera into a hands free carrying position.
For lenses below about 85mm the front carrying position is secure and critically, it really feels as if the camera has no weight. This allows you to be completely hands free, or holding other equipment, whilst your camera rests securely in the harness. I loved how easy it was to review images this way, with the cotton carrier holding your camera in the perfect position for you. The image shows a long telephoto lens being carried here, and although this is feasible, you will see the issue I suffered below, which make me question the safety of this.
Getting it out is a breeze – just twist the camera back to the 45-degree angle you in sorted it with (this is due to the locking mechanism) and lift it free.
Perfect. Well, yes, but in my experience only if it is one camera and a mid-telephoto or less. Otherwise is starts to feel too heavy.
Put a long lens on the camera – say a 7o—200 with a tripod ring mount – and first thing you have to adjust is the ring mount around to a position on the side of the lens, otherwise it conflicts with the reinforced plate that holds the mounting bracket, which means you can’t get the requisite 45 degree angle to mount – twist – lock it into position.
And this is where I believe one of it flaws is. I THOUGHT I had locked it in, but a quick drop to my haunches to get at a different angle, actually resulted in the lens catching on my thighs and, because I hadn’t locked it properly (so in fairness my fault), the lens popped out. The results sadly were a lens clattering onto the concrete ground resulting in a broken gears mechanism in the IS part of the 70-200 and a damaged mirror on the camera. An expensive and totally avoidable mistake.
The other bit that is less than perfect is the second holster. The principal is fine. You can add this to the Cotton Carrier or you can add to another belt system. But again, with a long lens on the holster mount I found itnot entirely practical and very difficult to get the camera out of the holster. I found it difficult to get the same really tight fit against the body as you can with the chest position, which means that the holster and belt lift with the camera as you try and pull it free. What you need is some way of holding the holster down as you lift the camera. Actually what you need to do is just not buy the holster!
The same problem with the long lens happened in anything other than a standing position. Failure to lock it in – and it felt like it was locked in which I think is part of the problem – meant that any unusual position I adopted just resulted in the lens popping out of the harness and clattering to the floor – again. Once was definitely clumsiness, but twice – having checked the locking mechanism – suggests perhaps a design flaw. So by now my lens and Canon 5D Mk2 really need a trip to the service centre.
An expensive lesson.
For all that though, the cotton carrier is an EXCELLENT bit of kit, particularly if you only use the chest harness and ignore the holster, and you carry mid-size or smaller lenses. Most of my problems were my own fault – caused by failing to lock it in properly – although you could argue that the insert and lock mechanism is not perfect if this kind of accident can happen.
There is no doubt it is an incredibly comfortable and useful harness, and for those of you regularly out shooting with 2 cameras, I would still recommend it. I would suggest however that you practise mounting your camera at home first with a duvet or cushions on the floor until you are certain you have the harness adjusted properly, the mounting plates correctly inserted, and have worked out which lens should go where in whichever standing or crouched position you choose to adopt!
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User misuse should be an important design consideration. So whether it was truly user error or not seems almost irrelevant (to me). It simply shouldn’t be that easy to create a situation in which one’s camera goes tumbling. I definitely consider it to be a design flaw. I’ll be staying a way from it.
I agree with Jeffrey. While we certainly need to check to make sure things are secure, there are too many situations where you don’t have time to make sure things are working the way they’re supposed to. A good product, for me at least, allows you to easily forget about the mechanics and just do your work. I’d chalk it up to a design flaw as well.
Before reading this I thought I would only use one in addition to a neck strap to take the weight off my neck. Now I’m sure. You’d have to use an R strap or similar for a second body. It’s a pity the vest doesn’t come with multiple mount points for multiple bodies. There would be a balance issue, but if you had 3 mount points you could either attach 1 or 2 cameras with neck straps.
Then again, what’s the advantage of this over a front pouch? Seems a baby carrier, or oversized jacket with extra pockets sewn in would do a similar job if you’re using neck straps anyway. It feels like a bit of a gimmick to me. It doesn’t make getting your camera out any quicker. What it does do is secure it to your body and take the weight off your shoulders.