There’s one tool that is relatively cheap, indestructible, and incredibly versatile and powerful in shaping light – yet almost no photographers or videographers use them. It’s called a C-stand. And today, we’re going to talk about why you need one.
Every photographer, videographer, or indie filmmaker needs a C-stand.
I would include Cinematographers to that list, but they already use them. I would bet that it’s impossible to find a film set that doesn’t already have a massive army of C-stands. They’re everywhere. They’re ubiquitous. They have whole Grip Departments just to move them around. But most photographers I know have never even heard of them. So what are they, and why do you need one?
If you have heard of C-stands, it’s very likely that you’ve been told that they’re “really heavy duty light stands.” And you probably thought, “Well, I don’t use ridiculously heavy lights – my straight stands work just fine.” And you rightly never went out and bought a C-stand.
Of course you didn’t, because C-stands were explained to you incorrectly.
What is a C-stand? It’s basically a robot assistant.
Imagine that you need to hold a reflector up in the air at a certain angle. How do you do that? For a lot of people, that means hiring an assistant to hold the reflector for you. Without an engineering degree, that’s about the only way to put it where you need it, at the right angle, without it falling down. Unless you have a C-stand.
A C-stand is designed to hold things in the air for you. That’s it’s primary function. And its genius design means that it can hold a bunch of different things, at basically any angle and at any height. It’s built of solid metal, so it’ll last you a lifetime. It’s built to be stable so (if you use it correctly) it’s totally safe and won’t shift or move during your shoot. And it means that you can place tools to shape lights without needing assistants to hold things for you!
You need to hang diffusion in front of a window to soften some harsh sunlight? Use a C-stand.
You need a flag to block light from hitting your background? Use a C-stand.
You need a reflector above and below your subject? Use two C-stands.
It’s just perfect for holding everything!
We’ll have a whole series of articles that show specifically how to use C-stands in your lighting plan to better use flags, diffusion, reflectors, and even the odd cukoloris. It’s going to show you that lighting can be more precise than you ever imagined. C-stands give you unbelievably fine control over how you want to shape the light.
And because it’s so stable, you can set up very precise lighting and leave it for days if you want to. Your light will be consistent when you come back, and over your whole shoot – you don’t need to worry about an assistant shifting their weight and ruining your shadows.
Over the next few posts, we’ll talk about how to safely set up a C-stand, some of the different brands of C-stands, and the many different ways you can use C-stands to shape light. So stay tuned!