[Malikaii] is exercising the hacker spirit inside by building light stands out of junk. He’s using them as an alternative to purchasing off-camera flash units. He made this one using a lot of salvaged parts; two crutches make up the frame, a discarded reflector for one of those highway-work floodlights will house the flash, and an old pillow case diffuses the light. The version above can easily be moved around by an assistant, or if you’re shooting solo [Malikaii] also found that the base from an oscillating fan was easy to adapt for use with the crutch frame.
If you’re not able to scavenge these parts perhaps a folding light tripod is what you need.
from the picture that’s only one crutch to make the frame. of course it doesn’t free stand without that fan base you mentioned.
Great ingenuity — I only wonder if the light bulb housing gets too hot and melts the rubber pad of the crutch after time? Not sure if Malikai is using the flash that much, but it would be my only concern.
Nice job!
Author here. I’ll check back in as more comments arise, but to answer these initial ones: the stand you see actually is made from 2 crutches, because the lengths didn’t work out properly if I just used the piece I cut off of one.
Secondly, this is to be used with strobes. I was using a Nikon SB-28 which runs no risk of overheating anything.
Thanks for the comments, keep them coming.
Interesting, although I found that light stands are so cheap second hand it’s not funny. I picked up 20 of them by hitting the Good-wills and second hand shops for nearly nothing because these places have no idea what they are. $1.00 each and now I have more than I need.
Scrounge first, fabricate second, buy new at robbery prices last.
Camera shops are thieves.
I was a partial collaboratorist with Malikaii, I helped carry some junk and he borrowed my gerber one time.
where we were located at the time, there was nowhere to find or aquire anything as far as a lightstand. closest thing to a lightstand was a $70 tripod, forget that, it was a sorry tripod too.
He went all out and had a DIY sock on it too. A sock is a piece of fabic, usually white, to soften the light of the flash even further.
@fartface, I need to know what Goodwills you are hitting up!
I misread the title as crotch-mounted light… anyone want to make one?
Propped up tech. It can’t stand on its own. Reflector can’t be aimed at any angle. Bounce off ceiling is not possible. Wire ties make for floppy fasteners, with ends clipped they can’t be tightened as they wear in. 3 mop or broomstick handles would make better stock, with a wooden tilt head. Aim and go shoot. Strike and fold up.
So in the picture, the flash fires out the back of the reflector in that setup?
Seems pretty functional.
If it works, it’s good!