I do a lot hiking and I've been looking for an alternative to my neck strap to carry my Canon DSLR on the trail. I found the Black Widow SpiderHolster on Amazon and gave it a shot based on all of the good reviews. I was not disappointed. I took it on a weekend trip to Tennessee for my brother's birthday to explore Falls Creek Falls State Park and Burgess Falls State Park. There are photo opportunities around every turn in both parks and it was amazing not to have to dig into my bag every five minutes to pull out my camera. This is a fantastic piece of professional gear and does exactly what I need it to. After a few hundred hkes, you get really tired of your camera flopping around on your neck while you're hiking.
Out of the box, you can literally set up the Black Widow on your camera in less than 30 seconds. You just use a wrench to tighten a washer and a bolt. They also sell a plate you can attach to the bottom of the Black Widow to make it compatible with a tripod. I highly recommend picking one up as an accessory.
The camera locks into place using a nifty little ball joint. It sits nice a snug against your hip and you can use the Velcro strap to lock it into place with the lense facing backwards so you don't accidentally damage your lense. The quick release is basically fool proof. You can remove the holster and attach it to any belt, but I really like the Velcro belt that comes with the unit because its really comfortable and has some padding to keep the camera from banging into your hip.
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| On the trail with the Black Widow camera holster |
The quick release is really smooth and fast. You can instantly pop your camera off the holster if you need to get a quick shot. The ball joint locks into place and you have to push the trigger to release it and slide the camera up and out. I did quite a bit of walking with this, and there is just no way your camera can come unattached.
After testing the Black Widow for a weekend on the icy trails in Tennessee, I may never bring my DLSR and hike without it again. I definitely recommend picking one up. I put together a short video of the hikes below if anyone is interested in checking out the waterfalls. Falls Creek Falls is often called the largest waterfall east of the Rockies.
