Nobody buys a strap by the inch. You buy it because the one on your camera is wrong, and then a product page asks you to choose between a regular and an extra long camera strap with nothing to go on except a guess about your own body. There are two live pieces on this site arguing why length matters for taller and broader photographers. Neither of them tells you how much. This one does.
The number you want is not the length of the webbing. It is the drop: the distance from the top of your shoulder down to wherever you want the camera to end up. Get that right and every other number on a spec sheet stops mattering.
Decide where the camera lands first
There are three positions people actually use, and they are inches apart, not feet.
At the ribs. Roughly where a factory neck strap puts the camera: level with the bottom of your sternum, high enough to be in the way of your forearms, low enough to swing into a door frame. It is also the shortened shoulder carry, which is quick to the eye and fine with a small body and a pancake lens.
At the hip. The crossbody position. The camera hangs by your hip bone, your elbow sits naturally over it, and you can walk a mile without holding anything. This is what most people are reaching for when they go looking for a longer strap.
Below the hip, lens hanging clear. What you need with a long telephoto. The lens barrel has to hang past the widest part of your hip, or it knocks against you on every stride.
The chart: drop in inches, by height and carry position
Measure the drop from the bump at the base of your neck at the back, the one you can feel when you tip your head forward. That bump is the cervicale, and it is roughly where a strap crosses you.
| Your height | At the ribs | At the hip | Below the hip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 ft 2 in | 12 in | 21 in | 25 in |
| 5 ft 4 in | 12 in | 22 in | 25 in |
| 5 ft 6 in | 13 in | 22 in | 26 in |
| 5 ft 8 in | 13 in | 23 in | 26 in |
| 5 ft 10 in | 13 in | 23 in | 27 in |
| 6 ft 0 in | 14 in | 24 in | 27 in |
| 6 ft 2 in | 14 in | 24 in | 28 in |
| 6 ft 4 in | 14 in | 25 in | 29 in |
Where those numbers come from, because it matters: the body-dimension tables in the FAA's Human Factors Design Standard, which publishes standing heights above the floor for the cervicale, the throat notch, the hip at the greater trochanter and the crotch, at the 5th, 50th and 95th percentile for men and women. Subtract one landmark height from another and you have a drop. The hip column is neck to hip, the bottom column is neck to crotch, and the ribs column sits halfway between the throat notch and the hip, which is where a factory neck strap lands. We fitted those six published points against height and rounded to the nearest inch. They are arithmetic off a public standard, not measurements taken on photographers, and the tape measure in your kitchen drawer beats them every time.
Notice how little the height column does
Fourteen inches of height, from 5 ft 2 in to 6 ft 4 in, moves the hip drop by about four inches. Work it out per inch and you get roughly a quarter of an inch of extra torso for every inch of extra person.
That is the quiet result in this whole article, and it is the opposite of what the market tells you. A tall photographer does not have a dramatically longer back. The biggest frame in those tables is about three and a half inches longer between neck and hip than the smallest one. Most of the extra height is leg.
So if height barely moves the number, why do so many people run out of strap?
Because the strap does not run straight down
A crossbody strap goes over one shoulder, diagonally across your chest, to the opposite hip. That path is not the vertical drop. It is the hypotenuse of the drop and the width of you, which means your build is in the equation and your height is only half of it.
Run the same published tables for shoulder breadth and the diagonal from one shoulder to the opposite hip comes out between about 26 and 32 inches. Six inches of spread, against under four for the straight-down drop. The axis nobody puts on a size guide is doing more work than the one everybody does.
And it gets wider still if you look at girth rather than skeleton. Chest circumference in those tables runs from 32 inches at the small end of the female range to nearly 44 inches at the large end of the male range. Twelve inches of variation, more than three times the spread of the torso measurement. A strap has to go around that, not just down past it.
Which explains something that looks like a contradiction in the search data. People type "extra long camera strap" and "camera shoulder sling long" and "50-60 inch camera sling" without being especially tall. They are broad, or they are wearing a winter coat, or a backpack strap has already taken the shortest line across their chest and the camera strap has to go around the outside of it. Length is a build-and-layers problem dressed up as a height problem.
Measure it yourself in two minutes
You need a shoelace or a phone charging cable and a tape measure.
- Wear what you normally shoot in. A jacket changes this by inches, which is why the chart cannot know it.
- Hold one end of the lace at the bump on the back of your neck. Run it over your shoulder and down the front to exactly where you want the camera body to sit. Pinch it there.
- Measure the pinched length. That is your drop, and it is the number to compare against the chart above.
- For a crossbody carry, do it again diagonally: shoulder to opposite hip, round your back, and back to the same shoulder. That is the path the webbing has to cover.
Then add for reality. A thick coat, a pack strap under the camera strap, a grip on the bottom of the body, a long lens that has to hang clear: each of those eats an inch or two. If you are between numbers, go longer. A strap with slack left can be shortened. A strap at the end of its adjustment cannot be lengthened, and that is the version that goes back in the box.
What the number on the box does not tell you
Here is the trap. Strap makers publish length three different ways and never say which. Some give the total webbing end to end. Some give the loop, which is roughly double the drop. Some give how far the thing adjusts once it is on a body. Three different numbers for the same strap, and no way to compare two listings without knowing which convention each one used.
So do not shop on the number. Shop on the drop you measured, check that the strap's adjustment range has room above where you expect to sit, and put it on before you decide. Our piece on seven ways to carry a camera all day goes through what each position is actually good for, and shoulder or neck covers why the position matters for your spine and not just your convenience.
Who actually needs an extra long camera strap
From everything above, four groups, and only one of them is about height:
- Anyone broad through the chest and shoulders. The diagonal is longer for you than any chart indexed on height will admit.
- Anyone shooting with a telephoto. The lens has to hang clear of your hip, which is the bottom column of the chart, four to five inches past hip carry.
- Anyone who wears a coat half the year, or a pack, or both. Layers go under the strap and take up its range.
- Anyone over about 6 ft. Worth a longer strap, yes, but by two or three inches, not by a different category of product.
How the HiiGuy strap handles it
That is one of our own photographs, and it is the bottom row of the chart in practice: the webbing on the diagonal, the body down at the opposite hip, the lens hanging clear so it does not clip his leg as he walks.
The HiiGuy camera strap comes in two variations, and length is the only difference between them. The Regular adjusts up to 32 inches on the body and the XXL adjusts up to 44 inches. Everything else is identical: heavy-duty polyester webbing, a wide padded shoulder pad, a stainless steel quick release at the camera end so the body comes off in one movement at a tripod, rustproof metal fittings, and a safety tether behind the release. HiiGuy has been making it since 2016 and backs the HiiGuy strap for three full years.
Pick between them on the diagonal rather than on your height. If you measured a long path, if the lens has to hang well below your hip, or if half your shooting happens with a coat and a pack in the way, take the XXL and keep the headroom. If your path came out short and you shoot in a t-shirt with a small prime on the front, the Regular has all the range you need. You can see both variations on the same Amazon listing.
One last thing worth saying plainly. The right length is not a comfort upgrade, it is whether you carry the camera at all. A strap two inches short puts the body up under your ribs where your forearm keeps hitting it, and a camera that annoys you goes in the bag. Then it stays in the bag. Then it stays home.
