Ok, so I'm currently researching lightstands, both for portable use outdoors as well as studio and what I am noticing is this;
- Portable ones are more expensive
- Portable ones don't even seem that portable, I mean when comparing to the choices we get for portable tripods they seem to fall way behind in terms of compactness
- Studio ones are cheaper (and by in large we don't concern ourselves for packing them down, they pretty much stay out all the time)
Watching videos of portable lightstands, they fold down to something akin to a large tripod, they can often weigh a bit more as well (unless plastically built, urgh).
Then there is the topic of weighing them down, so they don't topple over in the wind. Meaning sandbags draped over a leg (not ideal as it's not the centre of gravity) or carrying weights (literally small gym weight plates) and putting on the legs to keep it steady (via the assistance of 'Stand Daddy's'.
Neither of those options are particularly attractive to me.
As I was browsing youtube videos on lightstands one stood out the most, and it is this one below;
I have to say, what he said made a little sense, more so because I actually have a fairly tall spare tripod kicking about, and what I like the most is that the centre part of it has a hook, somewhere to either hang you backpack from to give your back a rest, or to give extra stability at the centre of gravity to the setup.
Factor in then that the tripod is typically lighter than the 'light' stand (hurrr) I'm quite keen to see if I can mod my own to get a little more height out of it. I'm also noticing that a tripods design vs the lightstand is quite different in terms of how the legs work. Tripod legs allow for better control of setting up the system on uneven ground. This is really important to me as I want to seek locations that are very off track, perhaps near waterfalls and places with uneven ground. The legs themselves may even be submerged, yet I don't think there are too many 'things' in the legs that will rust badly like a portable lightstand could (with its screws, nuts and bolts etc). I mean of course you want to dry out your gear anyway, but you get the point.
Then also the spread of the tripod legs looks to my eyes to be wider than what a lightstand can achieve, are tripods generally more stable than lightstands? (after all they tend to have more expensive equipment up top!).
So then, onto talking about the images I have attached below.
You'll see a picture of three tripods on my front garden path. The middle tripod is my 'main' tripod, it's the one I take out the most with me, it compacts down the most but as you can see it doesn't go too high, but I have found it goes up as high as I need and with the KP or K-1 tilt screens I don't need to bend down with it much, so yeh... that's the one that comes out with me the most.
(there is a little gorilla pod on the left which really serves no purpose here, but just chucked it in to the shot for comparison sake, it has a head that could take a flash unit, so I could hang it from a branch etc if I wanted).
The largest tripod on the right (
Promaster XC525) was my first tripod purchase (a bit of a regret) as eventually I sought out something smaller and lighter to take with me (middle), nonetheless it has been handy as I have used it for some indoor flash lighting (can put it on chairs to get more height etc), but also one of the legs detaches and can be used as a monopod (something I actually do find handy and use quite a lot), so I have never sold it because of these two reasons.
I am now thinking that I might be able to replace the middle stem piece with something else to get more height yet still retain the portability and versatility factor. A quick look on B&H and I found this fella;
CAME-TV Q148 Mini Tripod Center Column Extender Q148 B&H Photo
Now if I have understood this gizmo properly it's not actually intended to replace the centre stem of my Promaster, but rather if you take the ball/swivel head off the promaster you can then attach this onto it and get extra height. I mean there may be times I don't need the extra height anyway, I might find a large rock or boulder to put the tripod on that gains that extra height needed, but if on flat ground I could then get this column out and attach on as well and get that extra clearance needed for the shot. All for $15...
Am I mad to consider this as my portable light stand? All that would really be on top is a speedlight and either the gary fong diffuser or a 24x24 softbox etc.
Comments?
Cheers,
Bruce