Had two q straps old style and new (much cheaper made) style and both the caribiners failed fortunately no other kit damage certainly wouldn't touch another!
Mmmm, that carabiner on the Q-Strap does look like it might not last too long. I recently bought a Q-Strap/GT Max Strap and after reading the other posts made me wonder if I should ditch it and go and get an Op-Tech or maybe even a Black Rapid.
But then it got me thinking...
So I went to the loft and got out my strap collection (that sounds bad doesn't it!
!)
Anyway, I dug out a Trekking harness (
similar to this) that I bought just over a year ago, mainly for when I am carrying around a camera with a heavy lens and will be doing a lot of walking (motorsport, wildlife etc.). This harness comes with x3 'Op-Tech style' connectors (
x2 for the SLR plus a spare one for a compact camera or similar).
So I removed the spare one, took apart the Q Strap and slid on the new connector strap. Put everything back together again and Voila - I now own a Q-Op-Trek...
And I can still quickly hook up the SLR to the Trekking harness as well.
If it helps, Op-Tech do sell spare pairs of straps (
see here @Amazon) so if anyone wants to do something similar, it would cost less than buying a whole new sling system.
Having said that, the stitching on the Q-Strap is not great either, but could be reinforced by someone with some decent thread and a sewing machine. Other than that I reckon it does the job just fine.
Cheap-skate? Me? Pah