I am looking to purchase a light stand for mounting an off-camera flash unit with initially an umbrella, but want some leverage to grow with. Am considering Denny EZ Stand or an Avenger stand and was wondering which you might sugeest if one is better than the other in stability, construction, and Stability.
Thanks for your input.
Douglas
Does it need to be portable? I really like the Calumet compact lightstand for my location work with speedlites. It is very solid in build quality. But stability has a lot to do with weight. Adding a sandbag is a must for just about any portable stand.
I'd suggest an "air ride" stand. The better stands will run air through the tube so they won't slam down when the adjustment screw is loosened. Instead they will slowly lower as the air hisses out. It helps protect your equipment against sudden shocks.
In your quest for rock solid stability and immortality in a light stand don't forget you'll be shlepping it around for the rest of your life. Some of mine are 40 years old.
Stands are like hammers: sometimes you need a big one, sometimes a smaller one will do. The more important selection criteria are how and where you plan to use it and how high it needs to be.
As a rule of thumb for height take into account to create natural flattering lighting on a face you'll want your key light positioned to hits at 45° relative to the bridge of the nose to match the direction natural light models faces.
Thus if lighting a 6' tall standing subject with the key light abound 3ft away in a H&S shot and the key light needs to be up around 8-9'. If you move back for a wider crop and move the key light back out of the shot to keep the same pattern of light on the face you'll need to raise the light higher and use a bigger modifier if you want the specular and other characteristics to stay the same . In that situation you'd want a 12-13ft. stand with a bigger more stable footprint.
An important thing to consider in terms of wear and tear is the method used for locking the segments...
The stand on the top is an 8' Bogen-Manfrotto with a pinch-clamp lock. It grips the tube evenly and very securely. The bottom stand is from 12' Buff (Alien Bees) stand which locks the section by pressing a pad against one section of the tube. That style is more likely to break or damage the tube.
When you you get your one stand and use it you'll realize an off axis key light needs fill to control the tone in the shadows it casts. If fill is placed about chin level to the subject near the camera you'll get the lightest least distracting shadow on the nose and buttery smooth falloff darker towards the ears further back —quite flattering. Since it's placed lower a smaller stand will suffice for fill.
Extra stands are handy for adding reflectors, flag, set-up targets, your coat, etc. so you really can't have too many so don't sweat the first one too much. If it turns out not to be perfect you'll find some use for it
