As we have been impressed in the past with the price and quality Mennon’s products, we decided to take a look at some more items from their product line. Today we looked at the Mennon Camera Grip for SLR cameras and a couple of straps for SLRs and Digital Video Cameras.

There is not a whole lot to say about the “Camera Belt for Mini DV”, other than that it is a very high quality product. We did find the width of the straps to be a little wide for the eyelets of our particular camera, but the end result was a nice, tight fit. When compared to the factory straps, these were as good if not superior in quality. These straps are a neutral gray in color with a black pads and lining.

The “Camera Belt for Mini DC” as they call it, is a little more complex of a strap. It is designed for small PHD cameras ( a phrase my wife coined years ago for simple point and shoot cameras. As she defined it, PHD stands for Push Here, Dummy). It has a thumbscrew on one end with a mount point on the bottom of it so that the camera can still be mounted to a tripod. It has a triangular ring on one end of it for attaching to the camera’s single strap mount point.

Here I have mounted the strap in the photo here to my SLR to show the mount in place. You can see how the mount point for the tripod transfers to the bottom of the thumbscrew. The plastic mount on the end of the cable has a groove for proper positioning and can be tightened down into many different positions. If you are looking for a more deluxe, shoulder capable strap for your PHD camera, then this should do the trick quite nicely.

The more interesting piece in this set of straps was the camera hand grip (HS-SLR). Having a hand grip on your SLR camera is not unlike the feeling of using a modern camcorder. That is probably the best comparison I can make for how this functions. The quality of the grip is very good. The strap and connector are made of fine materials and seem very durable and comfortable.

The plastic mounting assembly at the bottom is an interesting combo of parts. There is a large thumbscrew that attaches to the camera mount point. That thumbscrew attaches through a plastic strap holder that gives some rigidity to the base of the strap where the hand pad is to begin. There is a new mount point in the bottom of the plastic carrier behind the thumb screw so that the camera can still be mounted to a tripod. However, this mount doesn’t seem to have the same camera stability for tripod mounting that the original mount offers.

The one interesting thing I found is that the strap that is removed from the one eyelet of the camera to allow the strap to fasten must now be connected to the plastic eyelet at the opposite side of the plastic mount on the grip. It means that carrying the amera with this strap on it will have the camera dangling at a new angle. Not a bad thing, but a little different than you might be used to.

These products are not yet available in any quantities in the U.S. as Mennon has not yet acquired a distributor in North America. However, you can find these products available is places like eBay and the occasional online photography product reseller.

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