Where's a good place to buy c-stands & sand bags

You can buy C-stands, sandbags and other grip equipment from B&H and FilmTools.com.

You know what sucks? Paying for shipping on sandbags!

Do you have a production equipment rental facility nearby? If so, you could buy some sandbags from them... maybe even the C-stands at used prices. Ask around. :thumbsup:
 
LOL @ shipping for sandbags. Sandbags are empty and cost practically nothing
to ship out, you need to fill them with sand. I bought both my c-stand (in great
condition) and sandbag on Ebay.
 
Charli said:
LOL @ shipping for sandbags. Sandbags are empty and cost practically nothing
to ship out, you need to fill them with sand. I bought both my c-stand (in great
condition) and sandbag on Ebay.
Click to expand...
LOL at LOLing at my sandbag comment. FYI, there are multiple styled sandbags on the market. The 4 Matthews sandbags I own are not 'fillable'. They are stitched up with sand inside. I've seen the zippered kind spring leaks on sets before.

Also, not all C-stands are created equal. Some have a Rocky Mountain leg, some have a turtle base, etc.
 
Terry_Lasater said:
You know what sucks? Paying for shipping on sandbags!
Click to expand...
You so are not kidding... people who live in L.A. and can just pick 'em up can save a fortune on these things. My favorite bags are the new Matthews Boa Bags, they're shotbags instead of sandbags and their snakelike design (hence "boa") makes 'em very useful, but they're enormously expensive to ship! When I lived in Vegas I made a point of buying a bunch of 'em off of Matthews at their NAB booth...

I tried the "fill 'em yourself" approach, with less than satisfactory results. You really need an industrial-strength sewing machine to seal the flap after filling 'em up. I've got two that have split open because a regular sewing machine isn't up to the task.
 
hey barry, i never heard of them before so i did a search and for (www.samys.com) a site that sells them for 29 bucks. Is that a good price for them? they also will ship three of them to me for 18 bucks.
 
Using a common carrier like UPS, Fedex, etc to ship heavy low value items around isn't very economical. What you want is a carrier that ships items at categorized rates depending upon the commodity. This means a general freight carrier (like Yellow Freight, etc). The problem here is the minimum weights (typically 500 or 1,000 lbs). If you are not in an area where you can go and just pick up sandbags and other heavy grip equipment yourself, I would recommend that you pool your purchase with a few others until you reach a decent weight for your grip items. Then ask the seller to palletized the shipment and arrange for shipping yourself via a freight line. It might take a week or two, but the per item cost will be much more reasonable.

As for the "zippered" sandbags, pass on them. Who needs a leak?

Once we had to rig a door and frame in the middle of an expansive sand dune for a shot. Rather than carry the sand bags we needed to keep this thing stable in the wind, we just brought trash bags and a shovel. Using the local materials worked just fine as a temporary solution. But on an interior location, I wouldn't want to trust anything other than a factory produced (sealed) sandbag.
 
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