Our Story

I've spent much of the last fifteen years trudging across this great southern land shadowing colourful characters in the observational genre of broadcast television. Their stories are intriguing but the days are unpredictable and long. 

As I’ve aged in this role as Shooter | Director, the cameras have become more compact. While lighter cameras have their advantages, I started noticing my posture changing dramatically. Traditional broadcast cameras were mostly weighted over the operators shoulder, but now overwhelmingly the weight is centred over the operators right forearm, causing the spine to curve and contort! The smoking gun for me was tending to drop my camera elbow into my hip for long on-the-fly interviews. I caught a glimpse of my awkward posture in a BTS image and I new I had to do something different and fast. 

Body worn stabilisers are practical for certain applications, but in my run and gun observational world they just wouldn’t fly. While shooting for Discovery Channel (commisions), our rental company started including support bags. These were designed for mostly statics and mounting options. While they were a definite improvement, I found the weight relatively high, the durability too low and they were cumbersome. My aim was to design a camera sling so light you wouldn’t know it was slung across your body.  

After making many prototypes and testing them in the harshest outback conditions I perfected the Wombat Cine camera sling. Many factors came into play to achieve the worlds lightest and most durable camera sling. The choice of material, the selection of high strength yet lightweight thread, the dimensions, and the filler all came into question. The pièce de résistance was born from super tough Aussie oilskin material, the strongest German made threat, and super sturdy construction. If you’re resting your elbow in the sling, cradling the camera in your sling or shooting statics and time lapses, I’m certain you’ll love the Wombat as much as I do. For me, the back aches went away and gruelling days didn’t feel as challenging any longer. 

A very unique feature of our slings is the fact the Wombat Cine sling will develop an outback patina as it ages, making it more and more comfortable to use as time goes on. Our facility is on Buderim Mountain on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. We ship world wide and our store accepts Stripe payments and PayPal.

Gareth Lee