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Photography Accessories

Lust Materialized: Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin Camera Strap Review

Chris Gampat
No Comments
07/15/2020
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin review 1.21-60s1600

The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin takes the strength of a braided leather strap and makes it slimmer.

Lamb: besides being my favorite meat it’s also fantastic to know that it’s the leather used in the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin camera strap. I’ve been personally using Vi Vante straps for the better part of a year because they’re honestly some of the best that I’ve ever used. It solves the problems that many photographers have had with lots of leather camera straps. It addresses the strength issue by being a strong, braided strap. It also stays nice and slim while providing this extra strength. And, most of all, it’s comfortable while being durable enough to handle even Panasonic’s S1 camera series.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Durability
  • Stylishness
  • Versatility

Cons

  • Still doesn’t work well with Canon cameras
  • $174.99 might be a tad pricey for most folks, but this is the one strap to rule them all

Gear Used

We tested the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin with the Panasonic S1, Nikon Z7, and Panasonic S1R.

Tech Specs

Specs taken from the Amazon listing:

  • Luxurious Lambskin Leather
  • Built in Side Protection with Finished Edges and red highlight stitching
  • Electroplated Mounting Rings; Extra Pair Provided
  • Comes in Branded Black Pouch
  • 47” inches / 120cm Long, 3/4 inch / 2cm wide
  • Handmade and designed by Vi Vante
  • Recommended for Leica M & Q, Fujifilm X series, and Sony Alpha 7 lines.
  • Not designed for DSLR use, but handles Leica Noctilux 50mm F/0.95 Lens with ease.

Ergonomics

The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin is a special and far different camera strap than any I’ve ever seen. Not only is it braided leather, but it’s also thin. Typically when these are made, they look like sailor’s rope. But not in this case.

The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin has some beautiful coatings that help keep it water-sealed and tight. Even with the weight of a Panasonic S1 and a heavy lens on it, it didn’t give way at any point. If anything, this design helps it expand and stretch more than a standard camera strap. This, in turn, makes weight distribution a lot better. One would think that this strap probably needs a shoulder pad, but it actually doesn’t.

The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin meets your camera through this area. The stitching is second to none here and further improves the build quality.

The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin uses a split ring system to connect to your camera.

Build Quality

Given the fact that we’ve used a variety of cameras with the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin, we’re very impressed with the build quality. More importantly, we’re even more impressed with the performance in the rain. In the past few months, I’ve been studying other entries into the leather world, such as fine leather watch straps. The Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin stands the test of time better than a $500 Breitling Blue Alligator watch strap, yet it’s less than half the price of one. Fascinating, right? Part of this is due to the design. When I take both of them into the rain, the Breitling strap gets a bit moist. But the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin doesn’t. The braiding and sealing used in the camera strap are far superior products while also being soft to the skin. I seriously need to take my hat off to Vi Vante in this case.

Ease of Use

Affixing the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin to your camera is pretty simple if you’ve got an option from Nikon, Sony, Leica, or Fujifilm. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why Vi Vante doesn’t make something that works easily for the EOS R or Canon’s DSLRs. This is personally annoying. It essentially means that, unless you’ve got a specific camera brand, you can’t really guarantee that this will work. To be fair, Canon is probably bound to change things eventually.

Conclusions

I really adore the Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin. Photographers of all sorts will too. Though it’s designed for folks who use smaller and lighter cameras, it can be used with something as large as a Panasonic S1R, and will be able to handle the weight with ease. And best of all, it will do so while remaining comfortable. My gripes: I wish it were more versatile for Canon users and it weren’t as pricey. But I understand the latter at least.

We’re awarding this strap four out of five stars. Admittedly, it’s still my favorite. Want one? Check out the Amazon listing.

build quality camera strap nikon panasonic rain vi vante Vi Vante Tiger Lambskin
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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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