Using That Little Flash Stand in the Box

If you buy a Nikon or Canon flash, take a look inside the box it came in and you’ll find a little black plastic stand (I call it a “foot,” but Nikon calls it a “Speedlight stand” and Canon calls theirs a “mini stand”). Anyway, your flash slides right into this little stand, and now you can put your flash on the floor behind your subject, or on a table, and it stands right up. It’s like a free mini-light-stand. However, it has a feature a lot of folks miss: the bottom is threaded, so you can screw it directly onto either a tripod, or a standard light stand, and it will hold your flash up higher. Hey, it saves you from having to buy a special adapter just to hold up your flash (though if you mount your flash on a stand a lot, and need a little more control [like tilt], then I’d use my tip from back in volume 2 and buy a Manfrotto Justin Spring Clamp with Flash Shoe for around $57, and then you can mount a flash just about anywhere).