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Photography Accessories

Review: Figosa Mirrorless and Vintage Camera Leather Strap

Chris Gampat
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05/11/2013
4 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Figosa Black Vintage strap (4 of 5)ISO 2001-125 sec at f - 5.6

Figosa is an extremely new company in the camera strap world. Based in Italy, and manufacturing their products from genuine Italian Leather, they are initially targeting users of film cameras and mirrorless digital cameras. Italian leather has always been known for its excellent quality and it is often always worked with by hand. This leather lends its qualities to their first strap designed for vintage cameras and mirrorless interchangeable lens cams as well. It can come in different colors, but we went for the conservative black look. The overall quality and look earned the strap a special mention in our recent camera strap roundup.

But should it be the next strap on your camera?

Pros and Cons

Figosa-camera-strap-on-OMD

Pros

– Survived a dog chomping down and pulling on it

– Excellent build quality

– Simplistic design

– Very comfortable

Cons

– Extremely standard strap with nothing extremely special to differentiate it from the others

– Non adjustable, so you’ll need to purchase the length of your choice and stick with it

Gear Used

We mounted the Figosa Vintage Leather Strap on a Canon EOS 7 SLR with a Sigma 85mm f1.4 EX.

Tech Specs

Taken from the product page listing

All the Figosa straps are handmade (by us), in genuine leather and available in four colors: black, dark brown, cognac and honey.

The metal inserts color can be gold or silver, as the user likes.​

The straps are available in three sizes: small, medium and large.

Ergonomics

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Figosa Black Vintage strap (5 of 5)ISO 2001-125 sec at f - 5.6

Figosa chose to go with a very conservative look and functionality to their straps. Granted, the entire thing is made from Italian leather–and that in and of itself earns it a place on your Leica.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Figosa Black Vintage strap (2 of 5)ISO 2001-125 sec at f - 5.6

Along the strap is a textured finish that we wouldn’t call quite pebbled, but instead would say that it is very hide-like still in both appearance and feel. Along the edges, you’ll see where the strap was heated and sewed together to stay strong and functional.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Figosa Black Vintage strap (3 of 5)ISO 2001-125 sec at f - 5.6

In terms of connecting to your camera, the strap has a half ring that is connected to a split ring. The split ring is one of the simplest to put onto a camera–and we’re not kidding when we say that we had the least hassle with this one.

Build Quality

We’ve taken the strap and camera out into the rain and it has been tugged on as well as experienced lots of tossing around with the camera and lens attached. For a one month testing period, the strap hasn’t suffered from any issues.

The strap is incredibly pliable as well. It isn’t as pliable as the softer leathers from Holdfast Gear and is more pliable than the leathers from Tap and Dye. Instead, the Figosa strap is in a comfortable middle ground.

In Use

We tried this strap on the Olympus OMD EM5, Fujfilm X Pro 1 and Canon EOS 7. And the strap felt comfortable with each and every camera.  The strap was hassle-free with each camera and made the camera carry experience extremely comfortable–certainly far more than the standard straps that come with these cameras. While walking through the hot and humid days of NYC, the strap also didn’t cause excessive sweating across my chest–which will probably be a concern for someone that springs for a strap this fashionable.

One of the horrific parts of the review came when I ventured into a dog park to play with a five month old Corgie named Stegasaurus. The dog grabbed the strap from the EOS 7 and started tugging on it as if it were a toy. Stegasaurus’ owner quickly got him to stop–but no wear was done to the split rings.

If that doesn’t demonstrate strength, we’re not sure what will.

Conclusions

For $27 and change, the Vintage Camera strap from Figosa really isn’t a bad purchase. It sports simplistic beauty and is an ode to the classic straps of the days of our grandparents. Granted though, there are no special features such as from those of Holdfast Gear or Tap and Dye–but those straps are more expensive though and well worth their weight in gold.

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black camera strap classic Figosa film camera fujifilm x pro 1 italian leather olympus omd sexy vintage
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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