Sandbag substitute for travel

O

ozmorphasis

Well-known member
Building out a kit for a lot of travel work coming up.

Plan on getting flex panel lights to keep weight down. Most likely will settle on Matthews Merf stands, but want to also secure the stands without traveling with sandbags.

I don't see very many water filled options. Any other ideas?
 
Bring a few sleeping-bag stuff sacks. Here's one source. Get a size big enough for an adult sleeping bag (say, 10L or bigger).
https://www.rei.com/c/drawcord-stuff-sacks

When you arrive on location, when you swing buy a grocery store for snacks or send a PA to get snacks, pick up some cheap 10lb/4Kg bags of rice.
IME, rice has the best weight/cost ratio of easily-obtained options. You could use beans or something, too. But rice works fine. Then stick the bags of rice (while still in the bag!) into the stuff sack.
At the end of the shoot, give the rice to the PA or someone.

I've been on jobs with water bladders... Those can last a long time, but some will spring leaks...and not just the cheap bladders/bags; good ones that were abused during transit. And "abused" sometimes means "packed in a hurry." Or perhaps the water bags were stressed by the edges of non-tubular legs on some light stands such as the MERF.

Ya, stopping buy a store is a drag and you can't always do it. So in other situations, I'll just hang a small backpack or other bag from the light stands' T-knob...With good-quality stands, such as Matthews, that's never been a problem.

I'm open to other solutions, of course.
 
I bought beer belts on ebay:https://www.ebay.com/itm/Portable-6...646010&hash=item2a5b69b12a:g:aqQAAOSwYHxWOdWH
and use them with plastic bottled water as counter weights for my boom setup and drape them on the lower portion of the light stands . I also bring empty sandbags and large ziplocks with me and if needed go to a home depot or whatever and buy sand and fill zip locks then put them in the sand bags and empty them when I leave. But the beer belts have worked for my stuff quite well.
I also used portable camping showers when I was dragging a portable jib arm around but with an Osmo now not necessary.
 
+1 for using water bottles. you can buy empty sandbags and use that, or the mentioned beer belts. Or as simple as double bagging them in plastic grocery bags, they will dangle just fine on many legs. Depends on how DIY you care to look
 
Yeah, I just take empty sand bags and go to home depot. Or if you're near a beach or desert or dune just fill it there. Sand bags have so many uses on set -- securing stands, holding down dolly track, something soft to kneel on, propping up the camera for a low angle floor shot -- that they are worth the hassle.
 
Many years ago we used to use hot water bottles. Never ever had a leak with good quality ones. Tied on with a bit of cord or draped over C stand lower struts. Tied together in pairs. Hanging on jibs in shopping bags. Countless ways to use them. Pack nice and flat for shipping. In the UK I've even had PA's on set using them to keep warm :)

hot water bottle.jpg

Chris Young
 
Unload the bags you intend to travel with and go to a home improvement store (as previously mentioned) and get a bag of pea-gravel for under $5. Badabing, you got ballast. In a pinch, you can use a shovel and load up with dirt. But the pea gravel is cheap and clean since it is a washed product. I like the pea gravel so well, I use it all the time for all my ballast bags.

Grant
 
Portable sand bags is a HUGE pain in the behind. From need to travel to home supplies store, to picking up gravel/sand what not, to load up the bags with spillage and need to clean up. I'm pretty sure the penies saved over a rental house are not worth the effort.
 
Travel is a pain in general and getting your gear there is part of the chore. If there are no rental houses where you travel....what you going to do?
 
Who has time to go to a home improvement store when traveling on a job??? And why do you need a sandbag with a flex light??? And why would you use a sandbag with a Nerf stand???

So many questions...
 
Liam Hall said:
Who has time to go to a home improvement store when traveling on a job??? And why do you need a sandbag with a flex light??? And why would you use a sandbag with a Nerf stand???

So many questions...
Click to expand...

Really? There's home improvement stores in just about any city. Maybe not if you're in some remote location, but other than that, any civilized place should have one place you can go and get some sand. Doesn't take much time. And sandbags have other uses the than holding stands. I tried to get by without them, was glad I bought a couple midway through my shoot.
 
Batutta said:
Really? There's home improvement stores in just about any city. Maybe not if you're in some remote location, but other than that, any civilized place should have one place you can go and get some sand. Doesn't take much time. And sandbags have other uses the than holding stands. I tried to get by without them, was glad I bought a couple midway through my shoot.
Click to expand...

Yes, really. Do you travel much? Have you ever used a flex light or a Merf stand?

I travel a lot. Schedules are so tight these days there's absolute zero time for shopping.

Sometimes I travel light and use Merf stands with my lighter fixtures. They can't hold a whole lot of weight and a sandbag could bend it's legs - the v-lock that powers the light is more than enough weight to secure the fixture.
 
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Liam Hall said:
Yes, really. Do you travel much? Have you ever used a flex light or a Merf stand?

I travel a lot. Schedules are so tight these days there's absolute zero time for shopping.

Sometimes I travel light and use Merf stands with some of my lighter fixtures. They can't hold a whole lot of weight and a sandbag would bend it's legs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get the thing with the stands, but there's a lot of other uses for sand bags, as I have mentioned before. If you don't have the time then you don't have the time. Other people do, and it doesn't take an exorbitant amount of effort.
 
Thanks for all of the ideas everyone. This is for a variety of shoots. Rental house will be a viable option sometimes but not all the time.

I went ahead and ordered a set of these water weights as a backup plan, but water is not ideal around cables and ballasts.

http://inspiredphotog.com/water-weight/

Could also use Jim Feeley’s idea of using rice bags. Can have amazon prime ship to my destination in some cases to eliminate the extra running around upon arrival.

I need to keep very light after arriving at some of these locations, so there will be no rock and roller, for example.
 
Batutta said:
Yeah, I get the thing with the stands, but there's a lot of other uses for sand bags, as I have mentioned before. If you don't have the time then you don't have the time. Other people do, and it doesn't take an exorbitant amount of effort.
Click to expand...

I agree sandbags are useful. With a flex light and a Merf stand, it's that light in weight you might just tape it down with gaff tape - use yellow then you have a hazard warning to boot.
 
Liam Hall said:
Who has time to go to a home improvement store when traveling on a job??? And why do you need a sandbag with a flex light??? And why would you use a sandbag with a Nerf stand???

So many questions...
Click to expand...

It doesn’t matter what is on the stand. If it gets bumped and comes down on someone being interviewed or on very sensitive equipment in this case of a few locations , then I’m in trouble. So, some extra stability is desired.

Will not be running off v locks in many cases and would like a bit more weight than that. Don’t need 15lb sandbags, but also not content with 3.5 Lbs battery.
 
Liam Hall said:
I agree sandbags are useful. With a flex light and a Merf stand, it's that light in weight you might just tape it down with gaff tape - use yellow then you have a hazard warning to boot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've considered that as well and I've done that on more than one occasion - minus the bright colored tape which is a great idea. It has worked fine and is admittedly more in line with what the construction of a MERF stand wants to see as you mentioned the possibility of bending the thin legs with anything really heavy.
 
No matter how light a stand is, if you extend it all the way up and someone bumps it the thing is a hazard. You can buy empty sandbags with zippers from several manufacturers. They're cheap and they store flat in any bag. I too like to use pea gravel, pebbles or shot, and I can send a PA to the home improvement or gardening store. And if not then I guess I could stick rice in the bags, but the weight is not nearly the same. For that matter water is not very heavy either so I wouldn't rely on that too much.
 
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