Photography Accessories

They Finally Got It Right! Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker Strap Review

Chris Gampat
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08/18/2020
4 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Holdfast Gear Vegan Leather Money Maker strap product images 2.81-30s1250

Last Updated on 11/16/2020 by Chris Gampat

The Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is oddly enough their best camera strap yet.

I’ve never really adored many vegan leather products, but the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is changing my mind. A staple amongst the wedding and event photography community, this camera strap is their softest and most comfortable option yet. Most vegan leather I’ve used tended to be rigid, tough, and sort of weird. But the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker isn’t like that at all. I’ve been very used to their Money Maker straps cutting into my shirt or skin. The exception is their canvas option, and now the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is my favorite. Not only is this the best vegan leather camera strap I’ve used, but it’s something I may consider using more often.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Very soft strap
  • Softest veggie leather I’ve ever used
  • Strong
  • Oddly more comfortable than the previous ones because the leather is so soft
  • Incredibly comfortable

Cons

  • Doesn’t fit into camera bags easily
  • Works best with a quick-release system

Gear Used

The Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker was used with the:

Tech Specs

Specs are taken from the official listing:

“This is an all weather, do it all camera strap. You get the same beautiful MoneyMaker design, same hardware, but in Vegan Leather. They come with everything you need to shoot with two cameras, including a pair of Camera Holdfasts and Safety Lanyards.”

“The new Vegan Leather MoneyMaker is designed around a modern and sophisticated idea that 2 cameras are more efficient and faster than 1 camera and switching lenses. This removes distractions which allows you to keep your eyes on the scene. Stay balanced with a camera on either side, stay focused with different focal lengths at your fingertips, and get the shots you need without ever skipping a beat.”

“This new Vegan MoneyMaker is an ALL-WEATHER, ALL-SITUATION, multi-Camera strap and comes in a myriad of colors, is easy to maintain and feels amazing.”

Ergonomics

Here’s what the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker looks like when it’s on a body. I’m around 5’7,” and I’m 168lbs. Two Fujifilm cameras are attached to the strap. The shoulder sections have straps attached to a D ring that slides up and down for easier access.

Here’s what the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker looks like when it’s around you. It fits sort of like a backpack in some ways.

To connect it to cameras, you’ve just got to use the tripod attachments. Those can be removed using a latch system that takes some effort to undo. This is an intentional design.

The Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker has something of a belt system design. This makes it more adjustable to your specific body type. But I had no issues with it right out of the box.

Here’s a closer look at the connection section.

Build Quality

Pretty much everything from Holdfast Gear is built very solid. If anything, one can consider them sort of rough, but that’s part of an aesthetic folks love. The Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is built solid in every single way, and so it’s no exception to the rules here. But what I’m most excited about is how soft to the touch this leather is. Additionally, the edges are very well rounded, and so they don’t cut into your clothing or skin. There have been times where I really wanted the Money Maker straps to have shoulder padding. But this doesn’t need it if you’re using mirrorless cameras. Further, the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is said to be weather resistant, but I never got a chance to bring it out into the rain.

Something that annoys me about this strap is that it takes up a whole lot of room in your camera bag. Additionally, I wish that there were ways for it to work with the rest of their system like their Classic camera straps, for example. I know that it works with their bags and waist satchels, but there has to be more integration. But that said, the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker is still my favorite entry from them yet.

Ease of Use

So first off, putting the thing on can be a bit of a hassle. Remember that it’s like putting on a backpack. With that said, expand the straps to be the widest apart from one another. Then it’s like putting on a jacket. Once that’s done, you’ve got two straps with male tripod connectors. Once you insert them into the cameras, you’re pretty set to go shooting. Again, I found it works best with mirrorless cameras. If you’re using big lenses, then they’re probably going to swing around and twist a bit.

The other weird part was the lanyards for the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker. I really wish that they kept with the aesthetic and used a unique canvas of some sort. It would add to the overall beauty of the strap that I’m going to happily wear with pride to events.

Conclusions

I really, really like the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker. Is it perfect? No, but this is the closest thing to perfection that they’ve created. When it comes to aesthetics, I’d like them to go a bit deeper into this. Maybe some fun designs with Vegan leather. Or adding canvas tabs and lanyards like I recommend. Overall, I can’t recommend the Holdfast Gear Vegan Money Maker enough. I’ve had friends call it funny names over the years, but this one isn’t funny at all. It’s all business.

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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.