Mr. Spadoni 

If decide to fabricate something, go to the Mill Ends store on Western. They have a decent amount of webbing, cording and hardware near the cutting table. If you really want to get fancy, the Rainshed in Eugene has a lot of bits that would work.
As far as protection, worried about getting the camera wet, I found a latching plastic box at Target that holds the point and shoot very nicely with a little foam tape for and fits in a jersey pocket. As far as instant access, the box could be modified with a retaining strap so you could drop the case after opening, which is easy to say and harder to explain. You could also modify the case for shoulder or waist carry very easily.

canklecat

Be careful with those tripod socket doodads. Some cameras cannot support much weight or stress on tripod sockets. Some can unscrew easily and dump the camera. Cranking down on the screw may just break the bottom plate or rip the socket out of the camera. On many compact digicams they're just plastic screwed to plastic and can tear out or crack.

Look for a locking quick release plate from Manfrotto or Giottos at the low end, or Really Right Stuff at the high end. These have little nubbins that resist torquing, so bolts are less likely to unscrew and don't require excessive torque to hold them in place with just friction.

Or back up the tripod socket mounting with a strong, thin tether material through the intended eyelets for neck/wrist straps.

I've nearly dumped some cameras and lenses trying to take the cheap route on securing photo gear. Besides the risk of breaking equipment, if we're in a group ride our wayward cameras might cause someone behind us to crash. I've seen that a few times when people dropped their slippery, non-ergonomic cell phones trying to shoot pix/videos or selfies during rides.

canklecat

Yup, there's that risk. I sometimes carry my Nikon V1, a very sturdy little compact digicam. The J1 was a little smaller but rugged.

A friend used to attach a wearable speaker for music while riding. When she crashed the speaker crunched her shoulder and broke her clavicle.

But it's possible for anything we carry in our jersey pockets or baggy shorts pockets to aggravate injuries in a crash. I usually carry a Kool Stop bead jack in my rear jersey pocket and realize the hard plastic handle and clamp doodad might cause a painful bruise or worse, right on my sacrum, if I land on it. Ditto my glasses, asthma inhaler and other stuff I carry. There's always some element of risk.

bwilli88 

So I went out to my shop and my strap bag and made this
a 1 inch nylon strap with sewn on parachute clips and an old luggage strap swivel.
I have a LensLoop strap and took the tripod mount loop from it and attached it to my Sony NEX6 with a 16-70 zoom lens
it works
could be made with the following
Parachute buckles $2.79
https://www.joann.com/dritz-quick-re...p/8657934.html


Dritz black nylon strap $2.79
https://www.joann.com/dritz-black-st...n/8600371.html

Dritz Swivel hook for 1" strap $2.09
https://www.joann.com/swivel-hook-fo...z=54&start=109

bwilli88 

Put a split ring on the lanyard loop of the camera and snap it into the swivel strap and leave off the tripod mount loop

gugie 

Thanks Brian!

palincss

The Kuban Hitch is indeed the Classic and Vintage solution to this problem. They've been off the market for many years now, but you can still find NOS on ebay. Here's one for $13.99. Binocular hitches are similar, and there are quite a few of them to choose from. The Annwenk harness https://www.amazon.com/Anwenk-Harnes.../dp/B01CM63TNE is also similar, and it's even cheaper than the NOS Kuban hitches.

gugie 

It's getting clear to me that the type of strap that would be best for me depends partially on the type of camera I'd be using. The camera I typically use is a point and shoot Fuji Finepix rated at 10m underwater, but the quality of pictures is limited. I do want something in that form factor, however, at least in it's rest state. It has to be small enough so that I don't notice it while riding.

Right now the default is the Fuji, I don't have to worry about it getting wet.

canklecat

Try paracord for rigging a strap for your compact Fuji Finepix. That's what I use on my Nikon V1 which is actually fairly heavy for its size -- it was really overbuilt. And it's been perfect for my little Olympus Toughcam and my Ricoh G series digicams.

To keep it as simple as possible I use a single length of paracord and no hardware. I used a double fisherman's bend to splice the ends together, *around* overlapping ends. The overlapping ends provide slightly better pressure distribution against my neck or shoulder, and a means to adjust the overall length of the strap.

The strap goes through one eyelet on the camera -- not in the tripod socket, for reasons I've described above. Eyelets are usually designed to handle the strain. Tripod sockets are not. I've seen tripod sockets damaged or ripped out just from cranking down too much on a tripod mount, let alone using it to dangle the camera. And the friction type tripod socket eyelets can loosen unexpectedly. The heaviest camera I've used with a tripod socket eyelet adapter was an old Olympus XA3, so a comparable digital compact camera might be okay. But those usually include eyelets that are better suited to the job.

On Wednesday's Ride of Silence I strapped the Nikon V1 around my neck, and cinched up the strap just enough so I could lift the camera to snap no-look photos, without the camera hitting my knees while pedaling. Works fine. I might notice the dangling weight on a spirited ride, but at our usual 10-14 mph pace it was fine. And I usually put a handlebar bag on my casual ride bike to hold extras -- battery, flash, etc. -- since I don't always wear jerseys with pockets on casual group rides.



The doodad in the left strap eyelet is just an elastic ponytail band to keep the eyelet hardware from clattering.