HOT SHOE Innovation - Part 1

Mounting an external flash (like a Canon Speelight 580 EX) on a light stand is not as simple a proposition as it might first appear.  There are standards that Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax use.  This is ISO standard ISO 518:2006.  Click here for the Wikipedia reference.

After suffering a strobe nose dive and subsequent repair, I noticed that various light stand and hot shoe fixtures that are widely marketed are absolutely SUB STANDARD. The following do not have registration holes for the strobe shoe locking pin and will easily allow the strobe to fall out of the shoe.

The following have a 1/4 inch mounting screw on the bottom and DO follow the ISO 518 standard with registration holes.  The Stand on the left is the Canon Mini Stand that comes standard with the strobe and is made of Metal.  The stand on the right is a Chinese knockoff from E-BAY and is cheap plastic.  BUT in this case, that is good.  So these are good for having spares.

The plastic stands can be found on E-BAY for $2.29!


Here an ISO Compliant stand replaces the non-compliant hot shoe on a small ball swivel I use on a background light stand.

Now here is the bonus:  the plastic stands can be EASILY MODIFIED with a HACKSAW to fit on a SPEEDRING.  That is coming up in PART 2.

Check out my portrait gallery to see the lights and stands in action.