definitely need a much lighter hairlight

Last night I was taking some shots of my kids in my home studio and had a scary moment. I went to move my hairlight stand just a foot and when I let go of it I forgot to wait until it stopped wobbling before I let it go. It came crashing down onto the hardwood floor and scared the living daylights out of me. Good thing no one was near it when it happened. The only damage I could tell was a rip in the side of the strip box which was attached to it. I used some black gaffer tape to cover the tear so I could continue shooting.

I was using a Genesis 200 on a Manfrotto 420 Combi boom stand with two 5 lb dumbells in the sandbag. This with the strip light and grid is just too heavy.

So needless to say I am in the market for a compact yet powerful hairlight. Especially since I am moving into a new house where my studio will be setup in my basement which has an 8' drop ceilings.

Any recommendations? What about modifiers?

Why not make the investment in better grip gear rather than adding or replacing a light?

TMR Design wrote in post #12456640
Why not make the investment in better grip gear rather than adding or replacing a light?

Okay, I'm listening. What do you suggest? I thought the combi boom I have was very sturdy when I bought it.

wheels, heavy and precarious i use wheels

coeng wrote in post #12456836
Okay, I'm listening. What do you suggest? I thought the combi boom I have was very sturdy when I bought it.

The Manfrotto 085BS is a much sturdier and easier to use boom package. I have its predecessor and would not go with anything less.

The first rule for me is to have one leg under the boom arm that moves the pivot point much closer to the weight. Next, always move boom stands carefully. That's one advantage of wheels.

Third, put weight on base of stand as well as boom arm.

Fourth, or maybe first - get a stand with larger base as Rob suggests. Getting a smaller light is likely to be frustrating in other ways.

Wobbling stand, no good. It is accident waiting to happen.

Even a good stand with a boom will present problems if you've got a strobe and lightbox flying 6 feet off the end of the boom.

A counterweight on the boom arm is a good thing but more important to the overall stability is weight at the center of gravity.

Think about vectors.
A 2 pound weight 6 feet from the stand vertical member is less stable with a 12 lb weight one foot from the stand on the other end of the boom than two two lb weights each 6 feet from the stand.

And in either case, the whole thing is more stable with more weight at the base of the stand than on the boom. That's one major advantage of a Century stand. The legs are low with part of the leg parallel to the ground so its easy to put sand bags over them to weigh down the base. (This is essentially what Rob said but with a detailed example )

SkipD wrote in post #12457549
The Manfrotto 085BS is a much sturdier and easier to use boom package. I have its predecessor and would not go with anything less.

I've got this stand and boom, it's a nice set up, only thing I'd do different is air cushion and an extra extension for height.

Higher is best with a large diameter main stand tube and adding lots of weight at the base.

coeng wrote in post #12456836
Okay, I'm listening. What do you suggest? I thought the combi boom I have was very sturdy when I bought it.

Although you could probably use a much better boom stand, the true culprit here was not using enough weight to counter-balance your flash head nor your stand. I'm going to take a rough stab at this and say that the Genesis 200 along with a typical strip box with grid is going to weigh in a about 6-8lbs. You say you had only 10lbs. as a counter-weight. That, unfortunately is not enough.....

Here's a standard use and amount of weight one should generally use "safely" when utilizing a boom.....
1.) Use twice the amount of what the flash head and modifier is as a counterweight..... (in your case 15lb.)
2.) Then, also use twice the amount of what the flash head and modifier is as leg weights on 2 of your 3 tripod legs..... (meaning you should have 15lbs. on one leg and 15lbs. on the other..... the leg with no weight should be facing the same direction of the boom arm)

Now what you have will probably work and probably has worked in the past. But being carefull and making sure you don't bump into the stand or walking slowly away from the light stand with wishfull thinking in hopes that it doesn't fall over is ludicrous. What I'm suggesting may seem like a lot of weight and un-necessary, but buying a more expensive, more bigger, more popular boom stand still requires proper counter-balance on the boom arm as well as the legs. Again, the stand that you have is good enough, the key to your solution is "Proper Counter-Balance".....

You wouldn't want to have a serious head injury to a model or in your case, at that time, one of your kids, or worse.....someone else's kid. All it takes is ONE TIME to crack someone in the head with you falling light stand and you're get the picture (No Pun intended...)

Best of Luck!

coeng wrote in post #12456836
Okay, I'm listening. What do you suggest? I thought the combi boom I have was very sturdy when I bought it.

The load capacity for Manfrotto 420 Combi is only 4.5 lbs!!!
Also it sounded you didn't have sand bags or weights to stabilize the stand. The conterweight is supposed to balance the load, you still need something to add on the bottom of the stand.

dchen99 wrote in post #12458262
The load capacity for Manfrotto 420 Combi is only 4.5 lbs!!!

From B&H:
When used as a boom stand, its maximum load is 4.5 lbs (2 kg) -- strong enough for a small light fixture with a small softbox or umbrella. A sandbag counterweight is supplied (empty) and recommended whenever boom is extended.

Isn't this what I did? Or is the Genesis 200 not considered a small light fixture? I didn't weigh the light and the strip box to make sure it was under 4.5 lbs but I figured it was designed to hold what I had. I had two 5 lb dumbells in the sandbag.

In any case, I'm moving into a new house in a few weeks and my overhead space in my proposed studio area (the basement) is only going to be 8 feet. So I definitely need to consider finding a compact hair light. I would even consider a simple railing system if it would help save on vertical space.

Maximum load is quite different from maximum stability.

You said that the stand wasn't falling over. That's essentially what the spec says.

I can 'balance' things with a 600 Watt second strobe and 54" x 72" softbox on the end of a 6 foot boom and mounted to a heavy duty light stand and all the numbers are within tolerance... BUT, I would never use that combination without adding extra weight to the center of gravity at the base of the light stand for extra stability.

If you're working with clients you really want to make everything 'spill proof' and almost overcompensate to eliminate all the iffy and unstable grip gear.