Traveling Light

I thought I might cover off one of the tools I use that allows for very light weight and smallness to do a remote photoshoot.  I found myself doing a remote… very remote shoot recently in cramped quarters (small hotel room) and needed to be able to travel light to get my gear there.  The shoot was going to be on the other side of the country  - Vancouver… did you know that from Toronto one can fly to London, as fast or faster than to Vancouver? I had a pretty good idea in my head of what I wanted - two sets of images - one set with available light, and one set more studio-like. I needed to take two strobes, softbox, reflector, grid, stands, backdrop, etc… in one suitcase, AND it had to be under 50 lbs. for the airline to accept it.  Up for a challenge?

As it turns out I tend to use the Elinchrom D-Lite strobes anyway which are very small and lightweight as 400 w/s strobes go.  The softbox I used for this shoot was pretty small, too (26"x26"), but then so was the space I was going to be shooting in.  A grid and reflector are small and lightweight, and the black background was handled by a black king-sized bed sheet.

Aside from camera gear, lens, triggers, etc,  the only remaining issue was light stands.  The light stands I use in the studio are over 30 lbs each and way too big to fit in a normal suitcase.  My light-weight aluminium stands were also too long for a suitcase, although maybe in a larger suitcase you would be OK.  Seems I was really going to need a compact light stand - and WOW - did I find a winner!

The Manfrotto 5001B is very compact - you can see it here relative to my iPhone.  Folded up it is only 19" long, but it is also pretty lightweight (less than a kilo, or ~2lbs).  These are both good things, but what's more interesting is the way it expands.  The Manfrotto literature says that it expands up to 6 feet in length, but in the image on the left you can see that I extended it more than that (10' ceiling) by having the legs angled the way I did - not always recommended for stability, but....   I did measure and the shaft of the stand, and fully extended it is about 6' - just seemed like a lot more with the strobe and the softbox.

(Left - Fully extended with a flash head and softbox on, and right fully collapsed - except for the legs)

As you can see this tiny light stand handled the flash head and softbox without any issue, and during the shoot it was repositioned many times without it feeling too flimsy even when extended to the ceiling (and it was since it was being used as a hair light a lot of the time on a model who stood 5'9" I would guess).

The result then is a highly flexible, small-but-expanding-to-large, very lightweight stand, and part of a successful shoot which didn't require special cases to transport. YEAH! The Manfrotto 5001B is a great addition to your travel kit.  And based on this image from the shoot - it clearly did its job.