Cotton Carrier Skout G2 harness review

Cotton Carrier’s Skout G2 is a camera sling-style harness. The harness is made in Vietnam and assembled in Canada, it also arrived in eco-friendly cardboard packaging. Cotton Carrier is a member of 1% For The Planet, an organization whose members contribute at least 1% of sales to the preservation of restoration of the natural environment, so it’s good to know you’re supporting an ethical business if these are causes you care deeply about.

The Skout G2 Cotton Carrier says its goal was to provide a secure camera-carrying system that frees up your hands and keeps your equipment safe, and your body mobile. We recently got hold of one to put it through its paces and find out if it's worth your money.

Specifications

Size: One-size fits all 26-57" chest
Colours: Realtree Xtra Camo or Charcoal Grey
Material: Kodra synthetic canvas, impact resistant fiberglass, aluminum
Webbing material: Nylon
Weather cover: Yes
Weight: 0.47 lb / 215.5g

Features

The Skout G2 from Cotton Carrier is a sling for your camera, however unlike the BlackRapid Sport Breathe and BlackRapid Blackline I slings I’ve reviewed recently which fit across your body with the camera hanging down by your waist, the Skout G2 has a central chest plate for you to dock your camera.

Three straps fit around your torso and are adjustable to make it more comfortable depending on your build and stature. Two straps go around the sides of your chest while the third top strap sits over your left shoulder. The shoulder strap also has a neoprene sleeve for some additional padding and comfort though it’s also velcro’d on so it can be removed if you wish. All three straps are anchored together on your back by a small breathable piece of plastic webbing which is about 11cm in diameter.

This is also different from the Cotton Carrier CCS G3 which is a bigger harness with a beefier backplate and two shoulder straps to distribute the weight of your camera and lens.

The strap which sits around the right of your chest also features a buckle quick release which makes it a little easier to put it on and take it off when all of the straps have been locked tight to your torso.

Also bundled in the box is a security tether which can be secured to the strap lug on your camera body and also a buckle on the Skout G2 that provides some contingency should you accidentally drop your camera. This strap is adjustable so can be shortened or extended, it also has a release buckle should you need to quickly remove it from the tether altogether.

One nice surprise is that there’s a rain cover provided too. This neatly folds away into a little pouch when not in use and is clipped onto the harness. If the heavens are to open on a shoot it might not be the quickest option to remove the harness and pack everything away, so the rain cover is a good idea here, it also provides up to 10" of clearance, so it’s a good fit for even some larger lenses like my 70-200mm f/2.8, and just for people who want to be taking pictures outdoors in the rain.

Let’s talk about the mounting system as it’s quite interesting. The chest plate on the front of the harness has a large 65x120mm plastic plate front and center, with a plastic clip for your camera to dock into.

How exactly it docks is by attaching the provided CCS ‘hub’ quick-release plate to the base of your camera. The CCS hub is aluminum and comes with a 3mm thick rubber washer, a bolt is provided which needs to be attached to your camera with a hex key – this is a little annoying as you can’t simply tighten it with a coin or screwdriver if you misplace your Allen key, this is fairly standard on other QR plates.

Even more annoying is the cost of a replacement CCS hub should you misplace it as they cost $29 / £20 each!

Cotton Carrier has patented its Twist & Lock mount which secures the camera and CCS hub to the chest plate.

It’s also worth noting that the Cotton Carrier G2 Skout is also available in a variation for binoculars which comes with a hardened nylon 6 binocular bracket with a velcro tether securing strap. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the binocular bracket available to purchase separately, so if you wanted to use your Skout G2 for both camera and binoculars it would be best to purchase the binocular version and then purchase a CCS Hub (flat) for £20 to fit your camera so you have both options.

Performance

Despite being called Cotton Carrier, there isn't a shred of cotton in sight. Instead, the Skout G2 opts for more modern synthetic materials such as Kodra canvas, impact-resistant fiberglass, neoprene, nylon webbing, polyethylene foam, plastic, and an aluminum CCS hub quick-release plate.

The Kodra synthetic canvas material gives the harness a really durable and tactile finish. On the back of the chest plate, there is polyethylene foam which while thin was comfortable enough in our testing. Though it's worth noting that the heavier your lenses are the more you'll feel them pushing up against the chest plate.

The positives are that the three straps are adjustable and cater for chests measuring 26" all the way up to 57". One design quirk is that the top strap has been designed at an angle leaning towards the left, so it’s only suitable to go over your left shoulder, this might perturb some users who would favor bearing the weight on their right shoulder instead.

The good news is that the top strap has a padded sleeve which adds a bit of comfort to the shoulder section. It’s also optional and can be removed if you prefer as it's only velcro'd on. Removing the sleeve is handy if you wish to also carry a backpack as it keeps the harness straps more low profile and stops it getting in the way.

At the core of the Skout G2 is the CCS aluminum hub which bolts onto your camera’s tripod mount and then allows your camera to be twisted and locked quickly onto the harness, this system is also patented by Cotton Carrier. While it does make it quick and easy to dock or undock your camera and start shooting, the downside is that it requires a hex key to attach the CCS hub, so if you forget or misplace your Allen key you’re out of luck!

It's also worth noting that as your camera and lens has to be rotated 90º before you can lift your camera out of the dock to release it, this becomes increasingly more of a workout with bigger, heavier lenses.

The CCS hub does feature a female port on its underside allowing tripod QR plates to be attached, so fortunately you don’t have to remove the whole CCS hub to use a tripod, which would be a faff. One downside of the CCS hub is that it’s made from three parts which can all get separated quite easily: the aluminum hub, rubber washer and bolt for the tripod mount. The Skout G2 doesn’t come with a spare so you’ll need to purchase a new one for $29 or £20 should you lose any parts of the hub - ouch!

One gripe we did have with the Skout G2 is that the metal hub and plastic mount on the harness tends to squeak when you're on the move. This also happens on the bigger G3 harness, though to lesser extent because it has a stabilizer strap to stop the lens swaying as much. The G2 however has no such stabilization so your lens can swing around quite a bit and make this squeaking noise. This could be a big issue if you're trying to keep quiet when photographing wildlife. By resting one hand on your camera to put pressure on the mount you can stop it squeaking, though this sort of defeats the point of it being a completely hands-free setup.

Verdict

Cotton Carrier's Skout G2 harness solves multiple problems for photographers: it frees up your hands allowing you to dock it onto the patented Twist & Lock chest plate, it distributes the weight of your camera and lens across your shoulder which is more comfortable than hand-holding, and it brings your camera within easy reach so you're not scrambling around in your kit bag to find your camera before the moment has passed.

It's a comfortable harness, though works better with smaller lenses. If you plan to use really big and heavy telephoto's you'll be better off with Cotton Carrier's beefier G3 harness which has a stabilizer strap to stop bigger lenses from swinging about.

If you're looking for a more comfortable way to carry a single camera body with lens attached the Skout G2 does a decent job and a backpack can easily be worn over the top of it too. At the time of review it costs $99 US or £69 UK which makes it pretty good value, the only caveat is that additional CCS hub quick release plates cost $29 or £20, so are quite expensive to replace and they also require a hex key to attach them to your camera which can be a pain.