The LongArm and MetalHead – Taking Your Speedlite To New Heights
How do you convert a painter’s pole into a professional lighting tool that can carry your Speedlite to various heights above your subjects and then collapse it down so that you can maneuver through a crowd? I want you to meet the LongArm and the MetalHead. When used together, this $50 dynamic duo has quickly become a favorite tool in my gear bag for location lighting.
The LongArm – Extendable Painter Pole
My 11-year old son Tony discovered the LongArm on a recent expedition to Home Depot. I was checking out the sandpaper and he walks over with this painter’s pole zipping in and out several feet. “Put that thing away” I barked. Then “Hey, wait a minute, bring it here.” Tony was playing with a Shur-Line Easy Reach extendable paint pole. The cool thing about the Easy Reach (aka: the LongArm) is that it’s a 3-section pole that collapses into itself with the push of a button. It has detents every six inches so that you can extend it out to the length you need in a second and then lock it in place. You (and your assistant) will absolutely love how quickly the LongArm stretches out to just the length you need and how quickly it retracts. Zip. Snap. Zip.
Shur-Line Extendable Paint Pole (aka: the LongArm) - Push the black button, slide to the length you want, release the button, and it's locked.
Unlike other painter’s poles that look like a broomstick or something used by the pool guy, you won’t be embarrassed to carry the LongArm right into the country club for the big wedding. It’s a sleek-looking combination of black foam, red plastic and aluminum.
The Shur-Line Easy Reach comes in two lengths. Model 06570, the short version, extends from 30″ to 60″. Model 06572, the real LongArm, extends from 45″ to 108″ – think “just under four-feet to nine-feet”. I have both models and have found the long version to be indispensable. The short version is an easy carry but… just a bit too short most times. You can find them at Home Depot, Lowe’s and the like. You can also buy them through Amazon. [At Amazon: long version and short version.]
The MetalHead – Kacey Pole Adapter™
The MetalHead is the magic wand that converts the LongArm into a professional tool. If you’ve ever tried to bolt a piece of lighting gear onto a painter’s pole, you know that the threads are too fat and too short to fit into an industry standard fixture. Thanks to a tip from Gregg Zivney, who makes the great Wizard Brackets and a cool Dual Flash Bracket, I found the Kacey Pole Adapter. After showing it to David Hobby during his Strobist workshop in Paso Robles, it was dubbed “The MetalHead”.
The MetalHead (aka: Kacey Pole Adapter) converts a painter pole into a useful lighting tool.
The MetalHead provides a standard-sized pin onto which you can securely bolt a variety of lighting fixtures. It is robustly machined from solid aluminum and provides a solid base for your gear. Order the MetalHead for $19 from MPEX – MidWest Photo Exchange or $22 from the manufacturer.
The LongArm and MetalHead In Action
The LongArm-MetalHead combo can carry your Speedlite to the top of a party tent for a nice bit of bounce light. It can also carry your Speedlite over the top of table for a bit of fill light. If you need to move through a crowd, just zip it down and slide through. It used to be that we’d carry a mini-lightstand for this job. Our new rig is much better looking, easier to use, and a good bit longer.
The LongArm extends from just under 4' to 9' – enough to carry a Speedlite up to the top of this party tent.
The LongArm-MetalHead combo carries a Speedlite over the top of a table.
The MetalHead is where you start building your lighting rig. You’ll need an Umbrella Swivel Adapter so that you can control the angle of your light. (Don’t skimp here – buy a strong one.) A Speedlite with a Stofen Diffuser or Honl Grid is an easy carry. An umbrella – either shoot-through or silver – is also an easy carry (unless it’s windy). The Lastolight EzyBox (one of my favorite Speedlite modifiers) definitely pushes the boundary – of my assistant’s willingness to hoist the rig overhead for minutes on end. The good news is that the LongArm, as shown in the pic at the opening of this article, is long enough so that you can extend it to full length and set the end on the ground. Then, the EzyBox is relatively easy to loft up to six feet or so.
Thanks again to my son Tony for being the curious rascal that he is, to Gregg Zivey for pointing me to the Kacey Pole Adapter, to David Hobby for giving it a cool name and to my son Tom (in the pix above) for fully endorsing the LongArm-MetalHead as the assistant on a number of recent shoots.
[About the photo at the top: You're looking at a Canon 580EX in a cabled hotshoe attached to the hotshoe bracket on the Lastolite EzyBox (the 24" model) that's bolted into an umbrella swivel adapter clamped onto the MetalHead at the end of the LongArm. Wow, that's a mouthful. The little box hanging from the EzyBox bracket is an Elincrom Skyport receiver. The cable runs from the Skyport into the hotshoe that holds the flash. I'm a big fan of the Skyports as they are smaller and more affordable than Pocket Wizards. Click on the photo below to see a larger photo of the rig.]
[...] Source and Read More: pixsylated.com [...]
Syl,
You continue to impress with these speedlight gadgets. And to show David Hobby something he didn’t know about speedlights? You deserve a medal or something.
M.D.
Flat out brilliant.
Nice idea. I saw that David Ziser did a similar post with the very same idea some months ago!
regards
james
[...] creative genius Syl Arena has come up with another clever lighting tool – and best I can tell he’s out $45 for the [...]
Syl, come on, you are really leaving this project half baked, aren’t you? Surely you realize that a paint can, on the end of the stick, would make a perfect soft box? Just fire the flash backward into the paint can, and it’s reflective inside?
Need to soften it up? Just use a plastic painter’s drop cloth over the paint can opening. How about gel color? They have them in blue, I have seen them! You could hang the paint bucket from a tree branch with it’s handle!
This is an amazing consequence. I stood for 15 minutes in Home Depot last weekend looking at one of the Long Arms, wondering how I could add it to my photo arsenal. I gave up after a sales person told me the thread at the end was an unconventional size and there weren’t any step-down devices for it.
And then this! Fantastic!
Now here’s a challenge: it struck me that the Long Arm would make a nice monopod, too — a lot cheaper than the Bogen Automatic Monopod ($94 — http://www.adorama.com/BG3245.html?searchinfo=bogen+monopod+automatic), which has a fast mechanism for getting extension out of it. The Long Arm isn’t as handy as the Bogen, but it’d be handier and faster than other monopods.
Can anyone think of a way to adapt the MetalHead to take a ball head that could be place on top of the Long Arm?
Robert
Hey Robert – If your camera is light, you could screw your camera right into the post on the umbrella swivel adapter. Real estate shooters do this when they want to take “aerial” shots (generally using high-end point & shoots). You could also attach a clamp (like those sold by Really Right Stuff) into an umbrella adapter. A ballhead on a monopod is usually overkill as the monopod is so tippy. You really just need tilt front and back rather that in all directions. Ciao! S
Nice thing about having your own machine shop is I made one like that about 6 months ago for myself, didn’t know that they were available for painter poles. The only difference is I attached the stud to the pole permanently. Ball head adapter would be an easy adapter to build for it as well.
Hey everyone…. Glad to see everyone enjoying my adapters and finding such a thorough review online.
My suggestion for adding your camera to a pole is mating the following with a Ballhead that suits your camera.
http://www.filmtools.com/filmtools-aluminum-baby-pin-to-3-8-16-male-kit.html
Cool–we do this often with monopods. How much extra length would you say you get from the pole?
Two very important words, if you’re going to use this rig as shown in the over-the-table photo:
Safety cable.
Can you imagine the liability nightmare if any of that stuff came loose and conked somebody in the head? The people who rig theatrical lights thread a safety cable through their fixtures as a backup; you can see an example here:
http://www.stageriggingonline.com/ligsafcab.html
What a great idea. Oh, and nice shots of the Opolo party! I think I recognize Dave Nichols in the background of the second photo.
[...] a stroke of brilliance for PixSylated. If you’ve ever wanted to do on location lighting up high, and didn’t want to lug [...]
Thank you for supplying information for those who have a limited budget on lighting. It is in the spirit of the photographer that subtle changes in lighting can improve the outcome of the photograph without “throughing money @ the solution.
As an industrial engineer and an Industrial/Commercial Photographer I wish I had thought of that. It certainly provides a solution to a problem that does exist. Imagine that, it’s not something that is just another pretty face, it actually does the job.
As Will Smith said so elequoently in the movie “Independence Day”, “I gotta get me one of those things!”.
… but will it stand up to the scortching heat of Joe McNally’s Trident of Light…
What an awesome idea. Though I do have to agree with the one poster above that a safety wire is a good idea. I do wedding photography with a monopod and I hold it over the bride and groom. I’d to have it fall on their heads.
Good Idea. I considered that a couple of years ago but did not have a threaded adapter to fit the extension pole. Solution: Take a discarded paint roller, cut off the portion of handle that holds the roller wire bail about 1 1/2″ above the top of where the pole would thread into the handle. Wrap some plastic wrap on the thread of the pole, screw the pole into the handle, pour epoxy into the roller handle and push a hex head machine screw (1/4″ or 3/8″ or your choice) into the epoxy. When it cures you have a threaded stud on the home made adapter. Not quite as elegant as the metal head but looks pretty good with a black roller handle.
[...] At number 100 I want him to post the things he DID learn in photo school, : ). Syl also posted a great solution for hand held lighting situations, called the LongArm and Metalhead. A DIY solution for those photographers with the need to get a [...]
This is a bangin’ idea. I have a wedding coming up and this may have to get put into play. What is your opinion of the skyports? I have been looking at them but it would be nice to hear from somebody with real world experience with them. thanks.
Great idea! ~ I was using a monopod, but this paint roller handle is lighter and longer. I like the metal head too… it seem more rugged and durable to the brass one I’m using now.
Lance – I think the SkyPorts are great radio triggers. I chose them over Pocket Wizards and have never looked back.
Three reasons:
size – they are much smaller than the PWs (it’s easy to see over your camera with a SkyPort on top)
price – they are less expensive than PWs (you can get a transmitter and receiver for less than $200)
professional quality – Elinchrom gear is among the best in the industry
Wow! Really could have used this today! -Although, I didn’t have a “voice-activated” light stand available…
Syl, Always great stuff. Bumbed i missed your wrkshp with Joe. R u having another 1 any time soon? Also, would love a work shop with the guys from Tri-Coast Photography, on off camera lighting with Radio Poppers. Let me know what you think. Got wind of you a half a year back B4 your site redo from a posting on Joe’s site. Keep up the cool stuff and thanks for starting up the Paso workshops. We got engaged several years ago in Cambria and love it up there. If you ever get down to my area in the O.C. look me up and give me a holla. Cheers,
marc-
[...] a painter’s pole that one could buy at HomeDepot or Lowe’s, Syl explains how he attaches a Kacey pole adapter [...]
Just curious, has anyone had any problems finding the LongArm version [Model 06572]? I looked on both the Lowe’s and the Home Depot sites + I went to Shur-Line’s site and only found the 06570L version. As I’m heading to the States shortly and am putting together my shopping “wish” list I wondered if anyone out there knows a good source for these in the western suburbs of Chicago [Naperville, Wheaton Aurora area]. Thanks.
Howard – My research online generated the same results that you describe. The longer model (06572) is not even listed on the Shur-Line site. Strange. You can order it online via the link in the article. I found mine by going into an assortment of Lowe’s and Home Depots as I traveled around. Good luck!
Syl,
Thanks. I also found this place: http://www.nothingbuthardware.com/784332.html which hopefully might be able to ship to where I’ll be. There’s just not enough time to drive to one place after another while I’m there. Having it shipped to me might make sense as it will already be packed for travel. Doubt they’d let me on the plane with one of these things in hand.
What is the best way to decide which Ezybox to buy – 15″ vs. 24″?
Thanks -
[...] extendable painter’s pole and metalhead [...]
fyi: as I discovered this weekend, painter’s poles are not carry on luggage friendly…they apparently consider it to be a weapon-like object. who knew.
This is fantastic! We’ve rigged a couple of monopods with flash units so I was thrilled to stumble across your photo site today. I love how easy your site is to access information! Thanks!!
Bought the longer one today at a homedepot. Did you know that there is one made by another company named long arm?
I got the shorter pole and the metal head last week BUT … for some reason the metal head is a little too big and won’t fit into the top slot of the end of all my umbrella swivel adaptors so it’s almost useless to me now. The only thing I can think of is to try and carve out a little more space in the space above the nut where I tighten up the adapter but I was really bummed. Still going to try and make it work, though.
John – Just to be sure… try unscrewing the keeper screw all the way to be sure that it’s not blocking the pole adapter. Even a bit of thread will stop the head from going all the way in. I have the same issue with my umbrella adapters on my C-stands. Both the MetalHead and C-stands have an industry-standard 5/8″ diameter. It’s snug in there, but it should fit without carving anything out.
Syl, Could supply me with the part numbers for your pole setup other than the adapter for the painter pole.I have the 580EX ,PX rec. and like setup.Would you know if I could use that hot shoe bracket if used a Jr receiver? Thank you
John – the rest of the gear shown is: a stanard umbrella adapter and a wired hot shoe (both from FlashZebra.com) plus a Lastolight EZYbox HotShoe. The ell-bracket comes with the EZYbox. You might be able to find it separately on Adorama.com.
Just another note on poles. I first did this years ago and got a tripod head to fit by threading a paint roller. Thing is, you have to buy just about the cheapest paint rollers you can find to get one with 1/4″ metal frame (nice ones, like the ones I actually paint with, have heavier frames than this). Saw it off before the bends, clamp it in a vise and cut some threads with a 1/4-20 die and voila!, a cheapo adapter to mount a camera (directly) or tripod head on. The metalhead is much more elegant, but I do with it came with a 3/8 or 1/4 threaded stud instead.
Have fun!
Hello Syl,
I like the idea very much but tone thing bothers me: isn’t the whole thing too heavy so it would twist in the hands ? how about an extra perpendicular handle on the stick to help with the torsion?
Just a thought.
Nico
Hi Syl,
Fantastic idea – just got all the parts and everything works great! One question: how did you remove the glue left behind when you removed the product labels wrapped around the handles? That stuff is so sticky I not in any danger of dropping the pole at all…
Cheers,
Tom
I had a similar experience as a previous post. I saw the Shur-Line pole at the local Lowes, and decided it would come in handy as an extension pole for my SB-900. After looking around Lowes (and 3 other hardware stores) for an adapter, I started looking on-line, which brought me here! I ordered the adapter, and the rig will debut at a job I have this coming weekend.
I do agree with Tom Hewett, the sticky residue from the labels on the foam handles is annoying! It is tough enough to remove that sticky goop from a hard surface, let alone foam. Knowing my assistant wouldn’t like the “feel” of a sticky handle, I decided to try to remove it by using a conservative application of Goo-Gone. It did remove the sticky residue, but the foam absorbed some of the Goo-Gone, leaving a greasy, slippery surface. After gently rubbing the foam with a damp sponge, it finally came off. I can never understand why labels are made, and then applied to surfaces that make it impossible for them to be removed without a lot of work.
As for the adapter… Nice job Jerry Kacey! Thanks!
Thanks for the tip, Bob – I’ll try that out.
[...] friend, Earl. I was hoping to try out my new “Boom Box” (a softbox on a stick, a la Syl Arena) but the terrain and harsh lighting conditions made me reach for the “Boom Stick” [...]
I mentioned in a previous post that I plan on using the Shur_Line pole and the Kacey adapter at a job this weekend. While chatting about it with my wife last night, she asked if I could mount my camera on the pole. Knowing the weight of a Nikon D3 w/lens, I knew that physics, and fear would not allow it. She followed up with “What about my camera?”. Hmm, her small, light, but still pretty good quality point and shoot. I tried it this morning, and it works great! Without the ability to remotely trigger the shutter, it is necessary to use the self timer function, which limits things quite a bit, but it is still fun. After a while, I remembered that I have a 16′ aluminum painters pole in the garage. I have a couple attachments for it to dust ceiling fans, squeegee the hard to get at windows, knock down wasp nests, etc. So, it wasn’t long after I dug it out that I was outside, with my wife’s camera 16′ in the air, taking shots all around my house. Mind you, I’m not about to give up my Nikon system that I have taken years to amass, but I’m considering getting a quality point and shoot to throw in the equipment case along with the pole. I might just get a fun, overhead shot at an event every now and then!
[...] the above group photo, I used my newest toy, a painter’s pole with a metalhead, allowing photo gear to interface with something from a hardware store. Using the [...]
Chalk up another victim of that ridiculous label adhesive on the Shur-Line. I’ve contacted Shur-Line’s support to let them know how annoying it is. I’ll try the Goo-Gone.