Saturday, June 06, 2015

Griptac, where to buy? (updated again)

I have been researching for years to find the best material for improving the grip on a surface, for example a tablet, a tool, or a camera. The best I found so far is this.
But maybe it can get even better, I have heard of a material called Griptac (maybe). It is a flat material with a rubbery tacky surface, which you glue on the camera instead of the original leather.
It is supposedly amazingly good at making a grippy surface on cameras and whatnot, though the name seems to be used primarily on hockey sticks (that may in fact not be the same material used on them). In fact, the durn sticks are all I find when I search, even on eBay, trying to find a seller of Griptac. Does anybody know where I can get it?
[Note, early research point to cameraleather.com. I have written to them, but it's a bit unclear if they are still in business. There is also speculation that the word "Griptac" was made up, which would explain why it's so hard to find.]

Update: I've just gotten a mail back from CameraLeather.com, it seems they are in business. (And are rebuilding the site.) And do sell the stuff. So I consider this case solved. Thanks guys!
Update: CameraLeather will not reveal the source for the material, but from various clues I get the impression that it's basically just  strongly textured rubber, and should be available from, well I don't know, but some industrial sources. 

It is supposedly available in black or medium grey, the latter I find surprisingly attractive on the different cameras I've seen it on.

Photo: Christopher Liando

Photo: Louis Meluso

9 comments:

emptyspaces said...

Eo, is it this? http://griptecsport.com/

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thank you. That would seem logical, but no. It is a flat material which you glue on the camera instead of the original leather.
[I thought this may not have been clear, I better put it in the post.]

neeraj said...

... maybe this one:

http://cameraleather.com/colors/griptac.html

neeraj

P.S.: the captchas are really annoying :-(

neeraj said...

Addendum:

I've got it in a few seconds - instead of "Google" I'm using "ixquick", a meta searching engine, which is also much better for privacy.

So, using the web address "https://ixquick.com/do/search" I typed the searching term "griptac camera", and voila it was the first item (after a few commercials).

neeraj

neeraj said...

ah, now I see you also mention cameraleather.com ... sorry. I was simply proud having found it so fast ;-)

However, I find griptac on their ordering page http://www.cameraleather.com/online_ordering.htm , but of course I don't know whether they are still in business or not.

neeraj

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks Neeraj.
(I've done things like that a few times myself.)

I've just gotten a mail back from CameraLeather, it seems they are in business. (And are rebuilding the site.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Ixquick seems interesting, Neeraj.
What's special about a "meta" search engine?

neeraj said...

"meta" search engine means: it searches in a bunch of searching engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing ... and so on (I don't know exactly), combining the results of all searching engines used by it.

There are a few meta search engines, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasearch_engine

ixquick is one of them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixquick), the main advantage in my opinion is the privacy policy of it.

If you want to search Google only, there is "startpage", made by the same people from ixquick, using only Google search results but with the same restrictive privacy policy as ixquick.
https://www.startpage.com/eng/protect-privacy.html?&hmb=1

ixquick is my standard searching tool since many years, I appreciate privacy.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Cool, thank you very much for the information, I think I will use it.