Peak Design Capture Clip: An Honest and Unbiased Review [2024]

If you’re in the market for a secure way to effortlessly make your camera more accessible, you’ve almost certainly come across the Peak Design Capture Clip. But how does this clip actually function in practice and can you entrust this tiny piece of metal with your pricey camera gear? After several years of using the Peak Design Capture Clip, here’s my honest review of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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Overview of our Peak Design Capture Clip review

My husband, Justin, and I are professional travel bloggers and accordingly, take our cameras, well, pretty much everywhere. After putting our cameras in our backpacks or camera bags for seemingly an eternity, we transitioned to using the Peak Design Capture Clip a few years ago, which allows you to securely attach your camera to a backpack strap or belt and release it with a simple click of a button. 

After several years of use, we have LOTS of thoughts on it.

Want the TLDR? 

While there’s a few minor issues with the design, the Peak Design Capture Clip has been an absolute game changer, allowing us to safely secure our cameras and effortlessly access them, whether we’re hiking a trail or exploring a bustling city. I literally can’t imagine the number of shots we would have missed if we didn’t have our cameras within easy reach, like that one time a monkey tried to steal our backpack in Manuel Antonio. 

Beyond just improving the ease of accessing our cameras and enabling us to take more (and better!) photos, it’s made so many other things easier as well. For example, the clip makes carrying and swapping out lenses an absolute breeze. All in all, this little contraption has been worth its weight in gold (and is definitely worth its price point!). 

If you want a deeper dive into the Capture Clip, let’s get into it!

Specifications about the Peak Design Capture Clip (V3)

• Material: Aluminum
• Weight: 3 ounces
• Dimensions: 3.3 x 1.6 x 0.8 inches

How the Peak Design Capture Clip Works

The Capture Clip has two metal layers that are connected by two semi-permanent thumb drive bolts. When you unscrew the bolts, the outer layer of the clip swings upward.  

You can then sandwich your backpack strap, belt, or bag strap of your choice between the inner and outer portion of the clip and then simply tighten the bolts. For a more permanent connection, Peak Design includes a second set of bolts, without knurled heads, that can be snuggly tightened using a provided allen key. 

Justin and I have three Capture Clips and are constantly swapping them between ourselves and between our various bags. If your strap is cushioned, it can take a little bit of effort to clamp the clip back down once you’ve inserted the strap (especially if it’s on the thicker side), but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to remove and reattach the clip with no problem. 

Just be sure to consider the width and thickness of your backpack strap—the Capture Clip can accommodate straps up to 2.5 in. wide and 0.9 in. thick. This should work with most backpacks (unless you have, like, the Vin Diesel of backpacks). Also, if you’re a Peak Design fangirl like we are, some of the company’s backpacks, like the Travel Backpack, comes with specific loops for you to clip a Capture Clip on to (be sure to check out our Peak Design Travel Backpack 45L review– spoiler alert: we love it!).

To attach the camera to the Capture Clip, you’ll need to attach the special Arca base plate that comes with the clip to your camera, using the included allen key. The base plate is consistent across the Peak Design ecosystem, so it’s the same as if you have their incredible travel tripod—or, if you don’t happen to have one of those, it will also work just fine with any Arca-compatible tripod. Once the base plate is installed on your camera, you simply slide the base plate into the clip, until you hear that oh-so-satisfying click, letting you know that your camera is secured.

There’s a release button on the side—you’ll simply depress it when you want to slide your camera out of the clip. You can also rotate this release button 90 degrees to lock the release button and prevent it from being accidentally pressed down. 

Pros of the Peak Design Capture Clip

So what are the things that I like about the Peak Design Capture Clip? Let me count the ways…

Ease of Use

As mentioned above, my favorite thing about the Peak Design Capture Clip is how readily available your camera will be to take photos, especially as compared to if you have your camera tucked away in a backpack or a sling.

Plus I always feel like a National Geographic photographer or something when I press the release button down and whip the camera out of its holster.

Versatility

While I primarily see most Capture Clips used to simply hold cameras onto a backpack strap (seriously, it seems like every YouTuber that I watch uses one of these things), the clip can be used for SO much more than that.

Take, for example, our lenses. For our two cameras— the Sony A7III and the Sony a6400, we primarily travel with three different lenses: a telephoto Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3, a wide-angle Sony 16-35mm Vario-Tessar T FE F4, and a Sony SEL50M28 FE 50mm F2.8 for macro shots. 

For a really long time, we almost exclusively used the wide angle lens with whatever camera we were shooting with, because, well, we’re lazy and it’s inconvenient to set down your bag, rifle through it, and go through the process of swapping out your lenses. 

However, we recently got the Peak Design Lens Kit, which slides into the Capture Clip and securely holds two extra lenses at the ready (psssst…. if you’re interested in this product, make sure you’re getting the right kind for your camera system. There are currently 3 different models that are compatible with Sony E mount, Canon EF-EFS mount, and Nikon F Mount). 

You can also change the orientation of the Lens Kit when attached to the Capture Clip—we usually keep it in the vertical orientation while we’re walking around and horizontally when we’re using it to swap out lenses (this goes when you’re using the Capture Clip to hold your camera, as well—hang it in whatever orientation you so please!). It’s like having a third hand!

Beyond just holding lenses, you can also use it as a GoPro mount to get point-of-view shots.

Construction of the Peak Design Capture Clip

As mentioned above, Justin and I have been using these clips for years and move them around our various backpacks almost on a weekly basis. And yet, the Capture Clips have stood the test of time—while there’s visibly some minor wear and tear on the clips, they work as well today as they did when we originally bought them. 

Its solid construction also helps me feel confident that our very expensive lenses and cameras are securely strapped to our bodies as we climb over tree roots, logs, and whatever else we encounter on the trail or out in our travels. We’ve never once had an issue—or heard of any other user—having some kind of malfunction that led to dropping delicate camera gear. 

On the same token, the Capture Clip is incredibly well-designed, light, and has a sleek profile. 

For example, like true Peak Design fangirls, we each have a Peak Design 45L Travel Backpack that we use for one-bag travel. This backpack’s straps tuck under magnetic flaps along the back of the bag if you don’t want to use them. Even when the Capture Clip is attached to one of the straps, it’s still a piece of cake to stow them away under these flaps, thanks to its low profile.

Similarly, the metal plate’s low profile is awesome—you hardly notice it when you’re holding on to your camera and I love that it’s already compatible with Arca tripods (including Peak Design’s!).

Comfort

In full disclosure, having a camera hang off your shoulder can feel… a bit weird at first. But, after a few uses, you’ll barely notice it’s there (unless your set-up is particularly heavy—but more on that below). 

I also MUCH prefer the Peak Design Capture Clip to having a neck or shoulder strap, where the body of the camera slaps against your body as you walk or move around. Because the Capture Clip secures your camera or lenses in place, your gear is a lot less jiggly (and annoying) than when you’re using a strap, and much less likely to slam into obstacles when bending over since it hugs your body when attached to a belt or backpack strap.

Cons of the Peak Design Capture Clip

Durability of the plate

While the Capture Clip itself has held up impeccably, the plate that attaches to our cameras has gotten a bit worn out after several years of use. We can still use our Capture Clips and the plate just fine together, but it usually takes a teeny more fiddling around to get our cameras to slide into the clip and click into place. 

This would be easily remedied by just buying a new plate (which are conveniently sold separately if your plate ever wears out), but the minor annoyance of jiggling my camera for half a second more to get it secured in the Capture Clip hasn’t risen quite to that level yet.

Comfort for heavy camera and lens setup

Storytime—I once hiked 15 miles in one day along the Enchanted Valley Trail, with about 30 pounds of backpacking gear strapped on my back and my camera and two pound telephoto lens clipped onto my left shoulder with the Capture Clip. My poor left shoulder was DESTROYED by the end of that hike.

I don’t think Peak Design has ever advocated for strapping your heaviest lens to your chest and hiking for miles and miles on end with it. If you did need to carry a heavy lens or camera for a considerable period of time, you can easily do your best cowboy impression and clip the Capture Clip to your belt instead, which would certainly be easier on your body than my dumb decision.

And if you’re packing some massive glass, consider picking up the Peak Design Pro Pad, specifically designed to distribute weight and increase stability when using the Peak Design Capture Clip with super heavy and bulky gear. 

In any event, I thought it was worth noting that the Capture Clip is not the most comfortable contraption in every single use case, with every single type of lens.

There’s no stealth.

Listen, one of my favorite things about using the Capture Clip is that I feel like A Real Photographer™ whilst wearing my camera strapped proudly to my chest. 

But this isn’t always a good thing—for example, if you’re traveling in an unfamiliar or sketchier neighborhood and don’t want to necessarily advertise that you’re packing a multi-thousand dollar device. In these circumstances, keeping your camera in a discreet sling or backpack will probably make more sense than using the Capture Clip.

Ease of taking off your backpack

If you primarily use your Peak Design Capture Clip to attach a camera or lens to your backpack strap, like we do, one significant drawback is that you’ll have to be a bit more mindful of how you store your backpack once you take it off. 

For example, if you just sit your backpack upright, the weight of the camera on one of the straps may cause the backpack to fall over… and your expensive gear will be the first thing to hit the floor. Similarly, if we have the telephoto lens attached to our camera and strapped into the Capture Clip, we usually have to play around with laying the backpack down and carefully placing the camera and telephoto lens on top of the bag so that the lens isn’t touching the ground.

This isn’t a super huge deal, but it definitely takes more thought than if your pricey gear was already tucked away into your backpack.

Verdict of the Peak Design Capture Clip

All in all, I LOVE our Peak Design Capture Clip and can confidently say that it’s dramatically helped us up our photography game—simply by encouraging us to take more photos. Between its durability, incredible versatility, thoughtful design and reasonable price point, this little gadget is a must for every photographer on the go.

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Do you have any questions about the Peak Design Capture Clip? Do you have experience with it yourself? Let me know in the comments below!

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