PVC lightstands can support flash units with DIY adapter

    As promised, here's how to mount a flash unit on your PVC light stand.

    Everybody is familiar with flash units, especially on-camera flash. Some people started out with the built-in flash, but the first major upgrade is going with a speed light on the hot shoe.

    But if you want to take your flash photography to the next level, you need to get the flash off the camera, allowing you to get better lighting angles than if it's attached to the top of your camera, or on a bracket to the side.

    We won't get into how to trigger the flash, as the DIY options involve some knowledge of electronics and there are options available such as wireless transmitters or using our camera's on-board flash as a "master" to trigger the "subordinate" flashes.

    But the question is how to set the flash up away from the camera. Most speed lights nowadays come with a small cold-shoe base you can attach to the bottom of the flash. This base lets you set it on a table or shelf, but that doesn't help much when there's nothing to sit it on.

    The flash makers recognize that, and these feet have a 1/4x20 hole in the bottom to attach it to a tripod. That's a good alternative, but suppose you need the tripod for a camera, or you don't have the room to set up one or more tripods (they do take up quite a bit of real estate)?

    PVC light stands, particularly the one I built based on Scott Eggelston's (The Frugal Filmmaker) plan, take up one square foot of floor space.

    Using Scott's plan for hacking a worklight, I got a set of four 3/4" PVC end caps to make four flash mounts. While Scott just put a bolt through the cap to attach to the work light, a flash is different, since it would also need to swivel and tilt.

    I found a set of fairly heavy duty ball heads on eBay (I had asked Scott if a ball head he had used in a different project would work for a speed light, but he told me to get something with a greater weight rating.) that could hold a DSLR with lens if needed.

    I attached the head to 1/4x20 bolt through the cap, giving me a mount that can slip over the 3/4" pipe on the lightstand.

    The ball head is fully adjustable and the flash stand attaches easily and securely to it.

Mount your clamp light on a PVC lightstand without the clamp

    In the last post, I talked about how to double the output of a clamp light by using a two-bulb adapter.

    This time, we're going to talk about a better way to mount the lights than with the clamp.

    While the clamp offers a certain level of versatility, there are some drawbacks, especially if you're using the PVC lightstands I highlighted a couple years ago. The clamps sometimes don't grip the pipe just right and may come off at an inopportune moment, or they might throw off the balance of your stand.

    Also, if you're shooting in someone else's home, they may not want you attaching your clamp to their furniture and possibly scuffing it up. (Sometimes the rubber on the clamps wears out.)

    But there's a solution if you use the PVC light stand, as demonstrated by Ryan Connolly over at Film Riot. What Ryan did was replace the clamp with a pipe connector, allowing you to directly connect the light to the stand.

    What you need is a 3/4-inch pipe connector, a bolt, wingnut and a couple nuts if needed. Here's the basic assembly for the mount (before the light is attached).

    First, remove the clamp and get a bolt that will fit the hole that was used by the tiny bolt that held the clamp on. I wouldn't throw away the clamp, as you might want to use it if you're in a situation where you can't use a lightstand.

    Then, drill a hole through both sides of the connector to thread the bolt through. In my case, I needed to put a couple extra nuts on to ensure the clamp mount didn't come apart. On the other side, put the wingnut, as this will let you control the vertical angle of the light.

    This is the finished product, attached to a stand.

    Scott Eggleston, of the The Frugal Filmmaker, offered a similar solution for mounting shop lights on a PVC stand, except using end caps.

    In our next post, I'll show you how to use that technique for flash units.

Double the output of your home studio clamp lights

    Photographers moving beyond "natural light" toward studio lighting usually start out with continuous lights.

    It's not a bad idea, as it is a more "what you see is what you get" approach that helps you see the effect light placement and modifiers have before you hit the shutter. Continuous lights are also a necessity for anyone shooting video.

    One of the most economical ways to get a light set up is to use the clamp lights you find at home improvement stores. They're the lights in metalic reflectors that have a clamp you can attach to a stand, shelf or other object to position the light.

    However, one of the limitations of the light is that they only take one light bulb, and finding bulbs with high enough lumens for a reasonable shutter speed can be difficult. And if you are using halogen bulbs, you're going to run into a wattage limit on the lamp as well as overheating issues.

    But there is a way to boost the light output without turning the studio into a sauna or risking an electrical overload.

    For starters, go with LED lamps. They produce the same amount of light for a fraction of the energy, which means they don't heat up as much. That comes in handy if you need to put a diffuser or color gel on the front of the light. Growing up, I can remember a few lamp shades that were damaged because they got too close to the bulbs.

    LEDs also come in different color temperatures, so you can get daylight-balanced lights or go with tungsten and set your camera to the precise color temperature, saving you a bit of work in post production.

    But you still have the issue of just one light socket in the lamp. But there's a way around that, and I have to give credit to The Frugal Filmmaker, Scott Eggleston, for this idea.

    The Home Depot and other hardware stores sell twin-socket lamp adapters. They screw into the socket and give you two light sockets, allowing you to put two bulbs in, doubling the light output.

    In my setup, I use brooding lamps, which offers both a larger reflector as well as having a 300-watt rating, giving me more than enough margin for safety. In the lamp, I have two daylight-balanced 100-watt-equivalent LED bulbs that throw out a tremendous amount of light.

    It's a setup that provides a decent lighting system for both video and studio photos, whether you're doing portraits or just photos for your eBay/Etsy/Amazon page.

Bible for those who want to make PVC rigs for home studio

    PVC pipes are not just for carrying water.

    They can be used to construct a variety of things, especially photographic gear such as shoulder rigs, light stands and light boxes. Youtubers such as Scott Eggleston (The Frugal Filmmaker) and Dave Knop (Knoptop) have done impressive things with the pipes as well.

    But there is a book that describes how to essentially create almost an entire studio outfitted with PVC lighting rigs of various sorts, as well as accessories such as casters and counterweights.

    "Tinker Tubes: Personal Lighting Systems" by Dean Collins provides plans for a variety of lighting rigs and ways to turn an open garage door into a soft box. Collins, a photographer who died in 2005, developed his system as a way to provide professional level lighting rigs at a fraction of the cost.

    You can download a free, low-resolution copy of the book here, either to build some of these rigs yourself or give you inspiration to design your own rigs.

Getting ready for your video closeup

   With the coronavirus pandemic keeping most of us at home, more people are using videoconferencing to stay in touch.

    People are using Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other platforms for business and socializing.

    In many of these conferences, the participants look a bit pale, mainly lit by the glow of their video screens, which if there's other lighting in the room creates color shifts as the webcam tries to find a white balance.

    If the room is dim, the image will be grainy.

    And there's a lot of room tone as people use the microphone on their computer for the sound.

    For some people, that may be enough, but there are simple but effective ways to improve the quality.

    First, improve lighting. You don't need one of those three-point softbox setups some of the professional Youtubers use. I found that a simple desk lamp is more than enough to light me up properly, giving me a cleaner look on video.

This is where I do my work video calls/conferences. The light on the right just clamps to the desktop and lights up my face. I use a headset for the audio, and I've been pleased with the results these past two months.

    As for sound, you can either use a headset, a lav mic or even one of those hands-free devices for cellphones, as long as it has a plug that fits into your computer. That's usually enough to ensure you don't sound like you're talking from the bottom of a chimney.