DIY Studio Rail System for Lighting

[Kit Hannah]

So, I've been doing a ton of research looking around for "Studio Rail Systems" for my new Photo/Video Studio that I am putting together. If you don't know, what it is, the system allows the hanging of lighting from the ceiling as opposed to using tripods, and gives each light X,Y,Z movement to adjust for different lighting variations on the fly. Most systems I have found are a 9'x9' or 10'x12' and range from $500 per system up to $5000, and since my studio is 42'x21', I would like something that is basically going to cover the whole thing. Even at the low side of five bills, I would need 8 systems to cover the space effectively, which is $4000 for those of you like me who don't want to do math because usually we are reading this at 2am. But the problem is that it's not one continuous system, rather small systems that may or may not work well grouped together. Below is a picture to get an idea of what I would like to achieve.



Most of these systems seem VERY basic. They consist of primarily the following:

T6 Aluminum I Beam
Simple carriages (U brackets with wheels to roll over the I Beam)
Double Carriages (to attach I Beams together and allow the whole beam to roll)
Straight Pole Style Light Bars
Pantographs (the accordion style light hangers that allow vertical axis movement)

Now, I could try to make pantographs as they look fairly easy to make, but they would require some precision and it appears a lot of time in making sure all of the parts work together. I'm going to choose my battles and this may be one I skip because I have seen some decent looking pantographs for around $100 that I will try first.

But as far as the rails themselves go, and possibly even the carriages, I should be able to fashion those up much quicker to allow for one large system.

I will post some updates as I go along, but this is something I will be working on and hopefully completing this month. If anyone has any advice on ways to save money, and even make some good looking and strong carriages (also called trollys) to ride along I beams, I would appreciate your input. Or if you know of a source for inexpensive Aluminum track, that would be appreciated. I am going to also check locally for I Beams as it may be much cheaper. Arri sells their 13' I Beam track piece for over $200 each!

Quick initial basic plan:

40' x 20' overall system
2x 40' runners
11x 20' Cross members that slide on the 4x runners
22x Double Swivel Carriages
12-15x Single Carriages to hang lights from
40x Cable Carriages
20x Curtain Carriages (probably will be the same thing essentially as the cable carriages)

Here is a quick and crude sketch of what I am trying to achieve. We will have the space separated into 3 "studios", and curtains can be drawn to reconfigure as 2 studios or one larger studio. The blue represents lights/softboxes.

 

[Michael Carter]

You could go with the more movie-studio setup, a pipe grid. And these days there's a wealth of connectors to cross-tie steel pipe or aluminum. Not just speed rail but factory shelving and retail stuff that's cheaper per unit.

If I were doing this on the cheap (and I've been considering it), I'd go that route, skip the pantos and use theatrical pipe clamps (or mafers) and grip heads to attach 5/8 baby pipes/rods - that would give me all the up-down I need, and also give you a good radius of possible positions when angling the arms.

Problem with any of these systems is they limit light placement to fairly specific spots on the grid. Even the moving crossbar stuff means you have limited planes for lighting - don't sell all your stands!

 

[Kit Hannah]

You could go with the more movie-studio setup, a pipe grid. And these days there's a wealth of connectors to cross-tie steel pipe or aluminum. Not just speed rail but factory shelving and retail stuff that's cheaper per unit.

If I were doing this on the cheap (and I've been considering it), I'd go that route, skip the pantos and use theatrical pipe clamps (or mafers) and grip heads to attach 5/8 baby pipes/rods - that would give me all the up-down I need, and also give you a good radius of possible positions when angling the arms.

Problem with any of these systems is they limit light placement to fairly specific spots on the grid. Even the moving crossbar stuff means you have limited planes for lighting - don't sell all your stands!

I still have some stands, And the Pipe grid is not a bad idea. '92-2007 I did sound lighting and video production, had a 1000+ feet of truss, so yeah, pretty familiar with clamps that are out there, that could work out really well actually. I can get Elation / Global Truss clamps for super cheap although they're made usually for larger diameters that truss use. The problem I see with the pipe is just moving the fixtures on the fly... At least on the sliding system I can slide to where I want them to be, which would be faster and I believe less limiting... With the pantos they will have z axis including x/y on rollers. But I could do a pipe on a roller instead I suppose.

 

[Michael Carter]

I'd think even some sort of take on a Hollaender fitting that could be loosened and slid might be a cheap way, too.

If I were doing that in a smaller studio space, I'd probably depend on it for overhead lights to avoid long booms and base my setups on that, and then stands for everything else. I seem to use a lot of flags sometimes...