How to Prevent Your Light Stand From Tripping When Shooting Outside

Whether you shoot indoors or outdoors, you cannot avoid bringing your own lighting equipments with you. Even though there will be sufficient natural light outside, it won’t be in the direction you need it. Moreover, you will need light to fill in the shadows on the face of the subject. Therefore, it is always advisable to carry your light and light stands wherever you go. Using the stands in windy conditions can be challenging and the consequences of not using one can be severe. Here are certain that will help you to give stability to your stand.

Use The Conventional Sand Bags to Balance Your Light Stand

These inexpensive bags are an excellent choice for balancing your studio light stands or even your tripod. The heavier the stand and the larger the light, the more weight you would be required. Experts recommend that the minimum weight should be 15 lbs.

Weight Lifting Plates

It’s hard to believe but you can actually use the weight lifting plates to stabilize your lighting equipments. Use a rope to suspend these plates from the stand. Make sure that the distance between the plates and the ground is not much so that even if the plates fall due to any reason, there will not be any major damage. Although this is a wonderful idea, the major disadvantage with this idea is that you have to carry the plates with you all the time. If you are sure that you will find something like a huge stone that can be hung from the stand, you can drop the idea of carrying the plates.

Excess Baggage

For any outdoor shoot, you have to carry a lot of equipments with you. This excessive baggage can be used to stabilize the stand. Tie a ball bungee cord to your main gear bag and hang it on the stand. This is an awesome way to prevent your stands from tripping, as you don’t have to carry any extra weight with you. However, chances are there that your excessive baggage may not weigh enough to support your stand.

Apart from the ideas mentioned above, you can use anything that can add weight to your stand, thereby stabilizing it.