Last week I was out walking and using hiking poles as the pole went down I heard a rattlesnake, the pole was where my foot was going to go. The OP will thank me when he's being chased by a lion and he's flying into the back of a jeep. Back to the Black Rabid system, as I have said you can adjust it so it is high up off your hip and against your torso it doesn't move around much like that. The problem with a shoulder strap and a backpack is you have 2 shoulder straps on the same shoulder and that doesn't really work.
#Alamy stock photo forearm full#
If I was him I would be using hiking poles (you really need them for balance crossing streams, rocky ground, up and down hills etc) You need your hands free for the poles and not to be worrying about your camera slipping off your shoulder in the middle of a stream full of slippery rocks. The OP said that he was going on a walking Safari. I see nothing wrong with the strap that came with the camera, fixed to the two lugs provided for the purpose, over the shoulder as Russell describes above.
I imagine the camera must bounce around much more. I've never seen the attraction of camera straps that attach to the tripod bush on the bottom of the camera. I reckon I would do at least 8-10 miles a day. Bear in mind I would also go back to the media centre to upload between the main races. Perhaps not as many as a day walking on safari, but with a major course being several miles round I would cover it at least once, often more, during a day. At a motor-racing, rowing or cross-country equestrian event for example I would cover many miles. I used to shoot sport, and you will often see sports photographers carrying them that way at events. I don't think my neck and shoulder would cope with it on a strap these days! You can also carry it by one's side, in the hand with straight arm with the lens pointing down (as soldiers do with heavy guns), monopod is probably better unextended in that case. Easy to swap shoulders to share the load or to bring it into use if you keep the monopod extended just make sure it is well padded.
In that case I would carry it over my shoulder like a brickie's mate's hod lens pointing down my back. With a very long lens esp like a 150-600, the OP's 100-400 is maybe more marginal, I would be using a monopod in the lens tripod bush anyway (essential in the days before IS).