I’ve been considering buying a Honl Speed Strap to attach a Gel Clip that I was given to my flashgun, but think that £8.99 is a bit much for a length of stretchy velcro with a Honl label on it.
Yesterday, I was in Halfords, of all places, and I found some Velcro Stretch Straps (priced at £4.79 for 2 straps), so I picked up a packet and took them home, as I thought that they might make a cheap alternative to the Speed Strap.
First impression is that these straps are much too long (68 cm) for what I intended, and will definitely need to be cut down to be useful on a flashgun.
The plus side is that each strap should make at least 2 straps for flashgun use, so thats 4x straps for about half the price of a single Honl Speed Strap.
However, whilst they are stretchy, these straps are NOT rubberised, and so will not be as secure as the genuine Honl Speed Strap.
Testing the un-butchered straps on my Speedlite 550EX revealed that they are reasonably secure and can be pulled very tight. However, unless some non-slip matting (that you use to stop things sliding around a vehicle dashboard) is also wrapped around the flash head, then the usefulness of these straps to secure large flashgun modifiers is probably fairly limited, although I haven’t yet put it to the test.
My main requirements were:
- To secure a plastic Gel Clip to my flash head without using permanent sticky velcro; and
- To secure bare flash gels to another flash head without using sticky velcro.
When shortened to the correct length, these straps perform these functions very well indeed. I Haven’t yet got around to building a large softbox for my flashguns, so I can’t comment on how well these straps will secure a large’ish modifier, but I hope to complete the softbox in the next month or so.