Photography Studio Equipment: Light Stands

Video Transcript

"Okay, on this clip we're going to talk about light stands. Light stands come in different sizes and their sole purpose is just to hold the lights whether they're hot lights, or strobes, at whatever distance from the floor that you need them. This particular one is a lightweight stand. Usually some of this light would be used on location so you don't have to carry around point bounce cans because that gets, your assistants get mad at you. This one goes up to about eight feet, it's pretty sturdy. I wouldn't put anything that weighs more than about ten or twelve pounds on it, though. There are also studio stands that have wheels on them. So you can easily roll them around. This particular one has, what we call an air cushion which means, if you let go of it, instead of slamming down and breaking your light, it actually kind of cushions it as it goes down. These are pretty handy, pretty heavy, difficult to take on location but they work really well on a studio. There's a lot of different brands on these things. Each one has their own features. Some of these have little screws on top of them. This is the same exact thread size as in most tripod sockets to where you can attach your camera to it. It's kind of a nice thing if you're out on location and you want to get a high, high angle. You can set your camera on, on a self timer, run your light stand up as far as it will go, and take a picture from there which is a picture you will not be able to get any other way."