Sun Sniper Camera Strap -- Beware!

Sun Sniper Strap Failed Me Miserably, as Did the Company's (Sun Bounce) Management . . .

Long story short, while in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2011, on my second outing with the Sun Sniper camera strap, the metal hook/carabine attached to the strap, which locks via a screw-on mechanism (and connects to the ring linked to the bottom of the camera), loosened and opened inexplicably, and without warning -- dropping my Nikon 300s and Tamron 18-270mm lens to the concrete, lens first. The lens was instantly kaput, the alignment off, the auto-focus disabled, and exposures all over the map; in a word, the lens was no longer reliable.

Whether my experience was an anomaly or commonplace I don't know, and won't speculate on. But in this instance, for whatever reason(s), the strap did not perform as advertised or expected -- and its failure cost me considerably, on several levels.

This happened the day before a friend and I were to begin a 4-day photo safari in northern South Africa -- bummer timing.

After the safari, I tried the strap several additional times, with extreme caution, to "test" it before taking the next step. Used it with my Nikon 10-24mm lens on the 300s, considerably lighter than the 18-270mm, taking extra care to tighten the strap's hook/screw connection. Each time, the connection loosened -- in under 30 minutes -- and eventually would have opened. My unavoidable conclusion: the strap (the hook, specifically) was defective.

Hoping for a little understanding and help remedying my damaged lens (relying on the company's performance warranty), I wrote an extensive email to Sun-Bounce (headquartered in Germany) management describing my disappointing experience. That led to a series of increasingly frustrating email exchanges with Ulrich Goetze, a Sun-Bounce executive, which included his request that I return the strap (at my expense) and connecting pieces to the company for their "testing" of the strap; weeks later, he reported to me that the strap passed their tests (whatever they were), which he seemed to expect me to accept carte blanche, though he repeatedly ignored answering my questions re: methodology so I could determine if apples were being compared to apples. We had reached an impasse. Since I couldn't prove my claim empirically, Ulrich and Sun-Bounce chose to dismiss me and my claim with its form of "idiot treatment," which became its skewed rationale for doing nothing to try to right the wrong done to my lens.

In my final email to the company, when I knew it wasn't going to budge and all hope of fairness had been lost, I shared the following words with Ulrich and colleagues . . .

". . . far worse than my disappointment with your product and the result of these 'circular' email exchanges with you is being treated so callously and unempathetically -- while claiming your 'customer care is probably one of the best in the industry.' Do you think I made up this claim in order to snooker you into paying for a free repair or new lens? Do you think I would choose to go through this unappetizing process of 'I claim, you claim,' and jump through all the administrative hoops you asked me to, if I wasn't truly outraged, disappointed and believed in the rightness of my position? I have to wonder if you ever truly attempted to look through the lens from my perspective. I don't know what I expected when I chose to contact you (I know what I hoped), but whatever that was, I didn't get it or anything close to it."

So, to all photographers considering purchasing the Sun Sniper Pro strap, my recommendation to you is this: beware.

J. David Pincus (Fayetteville, Arkansas)

I own a Sun Sniper and have been very happy with it. It's been put through the rigors of photojournalism while bearing the load of a D300s, grip, and 70-200mm attached...and never once did I fear losing my camera. There are millions of satisfied customers, just like me.

That said, thank you for your constructive post and not just airing a rant. On the flip side of that coin, as a moderator, it is suspicious to me that your first post here is of this nature. Most new members take awhile to warm up and peek in the door a bit before posting something such as this. I would not be doing my job if I ignored the red flags here. For all I know, you could be trying to generate negative press for Sun Sniper by joining photography forums and posting this same message elsewhere.

Welcome to the site. However, if no additional posts are made within the next 7 days, this thread will be deleted.

Black Rapids on the other hand paid for repairs and new strap for a fellow photographer. Same situation however with the BR it was their "older version" which could come open. In this case that's what exactly happen except the D300 fell and shattered the back LCD - BR paid for the repairs, cleaning and setting of the camera plus sent a new strap(the current version) to the client. A quality American Company.

Anthony I doubt Sun Sniper a copy cat company sold "millions" as you stated.

Yes I own a BR strap - no I don't work for them.

Sam

Anthony, I appreciate your prickly "welcome" and sharing the kind of positive experience with the Sun Sniper camera strap I expected to have. Unfortunately, I didn't. Perhaps if I'd bought a Black Rapids strap, like Sam's friend, I would've had a better end result. He may have a cogent point about different notions of customer relations in different cultures.

I didn't realize I was going outside a protocol "waiting period" before making a post "of this nature" (what nature is that, exactly?) -- and don't understand why doing so should be instantly perceived as suspicious or raising "red flags," as you put it. Hmmmm, I wonder if I should be the one seeing red flags by such a harsh, baseless criticism. Come on, Anthony, you don't know a thing about me, yet you question my motives before you pose a question or give any benefit of the doubt.

I understand, and respect, that you're just doing "your job," as you noted -- which I assume is to protect the integrity of the site from those who would seek to abuse it for purely selfish purposes. But I don't understand why you would accuse before you have any basis for doing so. Is it a way of issuing a veiled warning up front, or what?

As with most things in life, my purposes in joining the site were several, beginning with my strong desire to alert other photographers, Nikon shooters especially (I've been one for 30 years), of the lousy experience I had with the Sun Sniper strap and the company behind it. Beyond that, I'm not looking to hurt anybody or any entity; my other interests have far more to do with talking photography strategies and techniques and places. But how could you know that if you don't ask. You said, in a berating tone, "For all I know, you could be trying to generate negative press for Sun Sniper by joining photography forums and posting this same message elsewhere." While I don't necessarily see anything wrong, or improper, with either of those things happening, I might think similarly of you. For all I know, you could be a paid employee of Sun Sniper designated to prevent or minimize any criticism of the company, however justified it might be. But I don't know, and neither do you.

Again, I think I get what you're trying to do on behalf of the Nikonites site; yet I don't get doing it the snippy, finger-pointing way you did it. Care to start again? Hope so.

Onward, David

Thank you, J.David, for sharing this info. I know accidents with products can happen. The company should have taken better care of you . . . it would have done much more for their PR, goodwill with customers, and faith in their product. I think you were treated poorly. Sorry for all the damage to your equipment.

Welcome to the forum. I would love to see some of your safari photos.

Best Regards

Thanks for posting your experience J. David. I'm sure others will benefit from reading this.

Anthony was suspicious because new members don't usually post things like this as their first post. When we see things like this it's from a person with one goal - to badmouth a product or someone, not contribute to the community. Thank you for explaining your intentions further. Welcome to the site!

You read way too much into that, dude. But that's my fault, I forgot to include the hearts and rainbows at the end of my post.

Appreciate your encouraging words, Helene; even just a little show of concern, or that I was believed, would've made swallowing the loss easier. But I still had wide angle and a long telephoto I'd rented for the photo safari, so I nevertheless had the experience of a lifetime. Would love to share a few shots of some of the new friends I made in the Timbivati (reserve), though I'm not at home and only have access to a few of them now -- and, quite honestly, I'm still trying to figure out many of the paths on the site. Is there a trick to posting photos I should keep in mind?

Okay, I do understand that what you describe can happen sometimes (?). But why instantly assume it? Not very welcoming for those who don't fit the profile. But I thank for you the clarification, and the explanatory welcome. Looking forward to getting more involved . . .

Really, dude? I read way too much into it. It couldn't possibly be that you, a journalist, didn't say precisely what you meant? Even without the hearts and rainbows? Perhaps I did over-react some, Anthony. But I suspect if you gave that initial post to most people, they'd perceive it in the same neighborhood I did. I look forward to getting to know you better . . . David

It's time to move on. There's no need to keep revisiting this.

It's far more commonplace than you may think for false product reviews and/or claims to appear on message boards. There are spambots that attempt to register accounts on a daily basis on our little corner of the web. As software to prevent such action has gotten more sophisticated and automated, so have the attackers.

Thank you again for sharing your experience.