Light stand lite.

I have been working on this stand for a while now. Have been using the prototype for a couple of years in the field and was considering commercializing it in some way.
However today on the Strobist blog a very similar design by Swedish Photographer Peter Karlsson with an almost identical simpler version has put paid to the idea of patenting the concept.
So in the interest of sharing and giving back I will put my own design out there for people to copy if they want.
Like Peters stand it uses the light weight tent pole concept of thin tubes held together with bungie cord. Mine has spreaders to separate the legs. The flash is attached to a Kaiser cold shoe flash bracket that rides up and down the stand on a tube over the three legs. This stays in place purely using friction created by the legs being under tension.

So the flash can go from the top down to the first leg joint.
To go lower I just pull out the lowest leg sections and let them lie on the ground.

The prototype uses hobbled together hinges made from various model plane bits and pieces.
One end of the spreader slides up the leg to bring the three legs together then the three leg sections can be pulled apart to break the stand down.
This prototype is made from carbon fibre tubes used in kite construction and will support a flash at almost two metres and weighs just 250 grams.
Collapsed it measures 69 cm.





The next version I intend to make will be a five section leg so that the collapsed stand will fit in my Pelican lighting case.