A Photography Mistake To Avoid – Do Not Make This Light Stand Mistake

Do not make this photography mistake! I always teach photographers to keep their tripod and light stands weighted when photographing outdoors. I had a short family photography session on a hot 97 degree (f) day with no wind. But the one gust of wind that occurred during that session knocked my light stand down. On it was my Godox AD600 Pro and a transparent umbrella. The umbrella took the brunt of the fall and saved my strobe. But the impact broke the umbrella. Learn from my mistake and don’t make the same one.

Transcription was done by Descript‘s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar, and other errors, and is not a substitute for watching the video.

Hey, this is Scott Wyden Kivowitz, a storyteller with the camera, and in this video we’re going to talk about how not to break an umbrella. Do not make the same mistake I made always weight down. Your light stands when you’re outdoors. Let me tell you a story. I was asked to photograph a family on a Wednesday night just around sunset. It was about 5:00 PM and it was 97 degrees outside… coming up.

Now, normally heat is not that big of a deal, especially when it’s nice and breezy. It cools you down when it comes and you can go in the shade, and this had no wind. This day was so just dry and humid, but there was no breezes whatsoever, so I made a very common mistake. I made a mistake that I tell people to not do all the time. I set up my light stand. I attached my light, my umbrella, and I didn’t weigh it down. I didn’t weigh it down because it wasn’t windy. It was no wind whatsoever. It was 97 degrees, hot, humid, sticky, but there was no wind. So I thought that the umbrella was actually fine. I thought it would be okay. I thought that it was going to stay up and no problems because there was no windows, nothing to catch the umbrella and knocked down my light stand.

Now one of my Godox lights one of the AD600 Pro was on the light stand, had some weight, but now you’re talking to the light standards. Top heavy plus. I had an umbrella on it. Well guess what? One Gust of wind knocked over the light stand like it was nothing. One Gust of wind. The funniest part about this is that it was the only gust of wind. The entire session, the only gust of wind, the one gust of wind, and it took the umbrella for ride. Umbrellas are not that expensive for the most part. So the money aspect is not the point. The point is my life could have been damaged. That’s expensive and umbrella can be replaced for very little bit. Now I want to show you what happened. Fortunately, the umbrella took the brunt of the impact, slow down the flag from hitting the ground, and in fact the flash didn’t even.

The strobe rather didn’t even hit the ground because of the umbrella taken the impact and giving it that cushion. Now, as you can see, there’s a piece of metal hanging off here. That’s the rod that was inside of the flash and it broke right there. Now I can’t even open this because there’s no way for me to keep it open. Basically what happened is the rod was in here and in the end, right all the way over here is where it snapped. So what I went to try to collapse it, well first of all, it was bent. It was kind of looked like this a little bit. So my point here is don’t underestimate the weather. If you’re going to be outside and you don’t have an assistant there with you to hold your light, stand in place to hold your umbrella in place to make sure things are good and sturdy, then, uh, bring some weights and way down that light stand.

Now there is a product of the market that I’ve always wanted to try and I haven’t tried it because I have so many weights and sandbags and water bags that I’m not going to buy it, but basically it’s called a stand daddy and what it allows you to do is attach weight, literally like lifting weights to the feet of your light stands by this cool stand daddy clamp. Hey, stand out. If you want to send me one, I’m happy to try it. I’m happy to review it on this channel. That’s probably something I would recommend if I’ve actually had my hand on it, but until then I’m just going to recommend some sandbags, some water bags, whatever you can afford to try it, but make sure you weigh down your light stands because all you need is that one gust of wind and there goes everything. This has been a public service announcement from me to you.