Redundancy: Why I Never Rig Gear Without a Backup Tether
Rigging a camera to shoot from a climbing harness, a backpack, or any unconventional position sounds simple until you're actually the one dangling above a route with a lens hanging off a single connection point. Every rig I use in the field has at least two independent ways of staying attached to me, and I've never once regretted building in that redundancy.
I've learned this system trip by trip, mostly by paying close attention to the moments where a single point of failure would have meant losing a piece of equipment for good. I cover the full field kit philosophy this rigging approach sits inside in The Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook, but this piece is specifically about why backup tethering isn't optional in my process.
What "Rigging" Actually Means in My Field Kit
When I talk about rigging gear, I mean any setup where a camera or lens is connected to my body, a pack, or a fixed point in a way that isn't simply held in hand. That includes gear clipped to a harness system, gear secured to a backpack for a climb, and gear tethered during work on exposed terrain where a drop isn't recoverable.
Rigging exists because certain shots and certain activities simply aren't possible if gear has to stay in hand the entire time. Climbing, in particular, demands both hands free for the actual movement, which means the camera has to be secured somewhere else entirely while I'm not actively shooting.
The specifics of a rig change depending on the activity and the terrain, but the underlying principle stays constant across all of them: gear needs to be attached in a way that survives a mistake, not just a way that works when everything goes according to plan.
Why I Don't Rig Directly to a Climbing Harness
A common assumption is that clipping a camera straight to a climbing harness is the obvious solution, and in most cases it isn't actually what I do. A harness clip limits upward mobility in a way that matters a lot mid-climb — if I need to move past or above the person I'm shooting, a camera rigged directly to my own harness gets in the way of my own movement at exactly the wrong moment.
Instead, when I'm climbing with a camera, it goes into a backpack rather than staying rigged to my harness during the climb itself. That keeps my harness clear for its actual purpose and keeps the gear secured in a way that doesn't interfere with my own mobility on the route.
When I'm shooting a climber from the wall rather than climbing myself, the camera connects to the backpack via a strap or a daisy chain, or a double-length sling, rather than to the harness directly. That distinction — backpack as the anchor point, not the harness — is one of the more counterintuitive lessons I've picked up doing this kind of work.
The Backpack-First Approach to Carrying Gear While Climbing
Treating the backpack as the primary attachment point rather than the harness changes how I think about the whole rig. The pack itself needs to be secured well to my body, since everything else in the system depends on that first connection holding under load and movement.
From there, the camera's connection to the pack becomes the next link in the chain, and that's where the strap, daisy chain, or sling comes in — a connection strong enough to hold the gear's weight but not so rigid that it restricts how the pack itself moves with my body during a technical section.
This approach also means gear stays closer to my center of gravity rather than swinging from a point on my harness, which reduces the chance of it catching on rock or interfering with a move at a critical moment. Keeping the connection point close to the body's center has been as much about climbing safety as it has about protecting the gear itself.
Daisy Chains, Slings, and the Logic of a Secondary Connection
A daisy chain or a double-length sling gives me a connection that's adjustable and strong without being a single fixed link that either holds completely or fails completely. The multiple connection points along a daisy chain in particular give some flexibility in how and where gear attaches, depending on the specific position I need it in for a given shot.
The logic behind using this kind of connection instead of a single carabiner-and-strap setup is redundancy built into the connection itself, not just redundancy across separate systems. If one segment of a daisy chain is under unexpected stress, the load isn't concentrated on a single weak point the way it would be with a simpler strap.
I treat this piece of the rig the same way I'd treat any piece of climbing equipment — inspected regularly, replaced before it shows real wear, and never assumed to be in the same condition it was in the last time I used it without a quick check first.
What Redundancy Actually Buys You
Redundancy doesn't mean doubling the effort of rigging gear — it means making sure that a single failure, whether it's a clip breaking, a strap slipping, or a connection point wearing through, doesn't result in gear falling free with nothing else holding it in place.
In practice, this means every rig I build has at least two independent ways gear stays attached to me or my pack, not one primary system with a hopeful backup that only works in theory. If the primary connection fails, the secondary one needs to actually catch the gear, not just exist on paper as a safety measure I never really tested.
The value of this becomes obvious only in the moment it matters, which is exactly why it's easy to skip when nothing's gone wrong yet. I've had a primary connection point fail exactly once in the field, and the backup held. That single moment justified every extra minute I've ever spent building redundancy into a rig since.
The Failure Points I Plan Around
Every rig has predictable places where something can go wrong — a clasp that can open under the wrong angle of force, a strap that can wear thin against rock over repeated contact, a connection point that loosens gradually without an obvious warning sign. I build my rigs around anticipating these specific failure points rather than assuming a piece of gear will simply work as designed indefinitely.
Abrasion against rock is the failure point I watch most closely, since straps and slings that look fine on casual inspection can be significantly weakened by repeated contact with a rough surface over the course of a multi-day shoot. I check connection points more often on rock-heavy terrain than I do on gentler ground for exactly this reason.
I also plan around the failure point of my own attention — the moment when I'm focused on getting a shot and not thinking carefully about the rig itself. That's usually when a preventable mistake happens, which is part of why the redundant system matters: it protects against my own lapses in attention, not just equipment failure.
How I Test a Rig Before I Trust It
Before I trust any rig with gear I actually care about, I test it under controlled conditions — low to the ground, easy to recover from if something fails, rather than the first real test happening mid-climb on exposed terrain. That testing step has caught weak connections and awkward setups before they ever became a real problem in the field.
I also test a rig under the actual range of motion I expect to need, not just a static hang. A connection that holds gear steady when I'm standing still can behave very differently once I'm reaching, twisting, or moving through a technical section, and that difference only shows up if I actually simulate the movement beforehand.
This testing habit takes time I sometimes don't feel like I have before a shoot, especially on a tight schedule. But skipping it to save a few minutes has never once been worth the risk to gear that would take weeks or months to replace on a remote assignment.
Rigging for Different Activities, Not Just Climbing
Climbing is where this system is the most demanding, but the same principles apply to any activity where gear needs to be secured while my hands are occupied — paddling, mountaineering, even certain vehicle-based shoots where gear needs to stay attached through rough movement. The specific hardware changes, but the redundancy principle doesn't.
On water, for example, a similar backup logic applies with floating attachments and waterproof housings secured by more than one connection point, since a dropped camera on water behaves very differently — and often more permanently — than one dropped on land.
Across every activity, the core question stays the same: if the primary way this gear is attached to me fails right now, what's actually holding it in place instead? If I can't answer that clearly, the rig isn't finished yet, regardless of what activity I'm about to do.
What Breaks First, and Why I Watch for It
In my experience, straps and fabric-based connections tend to show wear before hardware does — a sling or strap that's been dragged against rock repeatedly will fray or thin out well before a metal clip or carabiner shows comparable wear. That means fabric components get inspected more frequently and replaced more proactively than hardware in my kit.
Hardware failures, when they happen, tend to be sudden rather than gradual, which is exactly why I don't rely on visual inspection alone for metal components. I pay attention to how a clip or carabiner feels under load, not just how it looks, since a compromised piece of hardware doesn't always show an obvious visual sign of the problem.
Knowing which component in a rig is statistically most likely to fail first lets me focus my inspection time where it actually matters most, rather than spreading equal attention across every part of the system regardless of how likely each one is to actually be the weak link.
The Cost of Skipping a Backup Tether
The cost of a failed rig without a backup isn't just the price of replacing a lens or a body, though that cost alone is real and often significant. It's the lost shoot day, the disrupted schedule, and on a remote trip, the possibility of not being able to replace the gear at all before the assignment needs to wrap.
I think about that full cost, not just the equipment price, every time I'm tempted to skip the extra few minutes a backup tether takes to set up properly. The time cost of doing it right is genuinely small compared to the cost of getting it wrong on a trip where a replacement isn't a quick errand away.
This calculation is part of why redundancy isn't a judgment call I make situationally. It's a fixed rule in my process, applied the same way whether the shot feels routine or genuinely important, because the moment I start making exceptions is the moment the system stops actually protecting anything.
How I Teach This to Anyone Assisting Me in the Field
When I'm working with an assistant or a second shooter on a project that involves any kind of rigged gear, this is one of the first things I walk through with them directly, rather than assuming it's obvious or that their own experience automatically covers it. Everyone's rigging habits are a little different, and I'd rather set a shared standard explicitly than discover a gap in the field.
I ask anyone assisting me to build in the same redundancy I use myself, even if it takes them a little longer at first than their own instinct would. Consistency across the team matters more on a shoot with any real exposure risk than any individual's personal shortcut, however well-intentioned.
Teaching this explicitly has also sharpened my own understanding of why each step matters, since explaining a habit out loud forces a level of clarity that doing it silently, on autopilot, never quite requires. It's made me a more careful rigger, not just a more careful teacher of the process.
What Changes About Rigging in Cold Weather
Cold weather changes the material properties of straps, slings, and even some hardware in ways that are easy to underestimate until you've felt a connection point stiffen and behave differently in genuinely cold conditions. Materials that flex predictably at moderate temperatures can become noticeably less forgiving in extreme cold, which affects how I evaluate a rig before trusting it on a mountaineering or ski shoot.
Gloved hands also change how carefully and how quickly I can inspect and adjust a rig in the field, which means I do more of that inspection before I've put on heavier gloves rather than trying to check connection points with reduced dexterity mid-shoot.
I also account for the fact that cold-weather layers add bulk that can shift how a rig sits against my body compared to how it fit during a warm-weather test. Testing a rig in the actual layering system I'll be wearing on the shoot, not just in a base layer, has caught fit problems that wouldn't have shown up otherwise.
Metal hardware also gets colder to the touch faster than the surrounding air temperature would suggest, which matters for both comfort and dexterity when I need to make an adjustment quickly. I've started favoring hardware with at least some non-metal contact points for anything I expect to handle directly and often in genuinely cold conditions. It's a small detail, but it adds up across a long, cold shoot day when every adjustment matters and fumbling with numb fingers is the last thing I want mid-shot.
For the broader field kit and safety systems this rigging approach fits inside, I cover more of it in the Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook, along with the inspection routine I run through before every single trip that involves any kind of rigged gear, no matter how familiar or routine the terrain feels going in, because complacency, not inexperience, is usually what causes the failures I've actually seen in the field.
Reflection Questions
- If your primary attachment point for gear failed right now, what's actually holding it in place instead?
- Do you test a new rig under controlled, low-risk conditions before trusting it in a genuinely exposed position?
- Which component of your own gear rigging is most likely to fail first, and how often do you actually inspect it?
- If you work with an assistant, have you explicitly walked them through your redundancy standards, or assumed they already share them?
Dalton Johnson is a professional adventure and editorial photographer with over a decade of experience creating images on all seven continents. His client work includes Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, Big Agnes, Ford Bronco, and 160+ other brands. He runs Dalton Johnson Media as a full-service studio, from pre-production through post and distribution.