How to make your own DIY mobile light stand storage cart

If you’re anything like me, you’ve collected a lot of light stands. And when not in use, they all just get laid down and piled on top of each other, eventually falling over. They take up far too much room, and if you need to set up a bunch around your studio, it often requires multiple trips to get them one or two at a time.

This video from photographer Simon Ellingworth provides a fantastic DIY storage solution for light stands in your studio. It can also hold other lighting accessories such as umbrellas clamps, tripods and monopods, too.

Carts are great for quickly moving things around a studio or other location, and we’ve shown you how they can be used to organise your gear before, but I’ve never thought of using one for light stands before.

The cart Simon shows in the video is fairly substantial. To buy this style of cart new they start at around $100, but you can pick them up fairly inexpensively on the used market through sites like eBay. They’re the fairly standard sort you might found being used in schools, libraries, and other places where they’re regularly wheeling things around. You could always build your own cart from scratch, too, if you have your own studio and you have a bunch of suitable materials laying around.

Simon’s addition to the cart is a solid board at the bottom, and then some cardboard carpet tubes, which have been cut to various lengths to accommodate different types and sizes of light stands and umbrellas. You could also use giant postal tubes or concrete forming tubes from your local hardware store. Clamps and arms are then simply attached to the cart’s handles.

It’s a quick solution to the light stand storage problem which allows you to keep everything organised and ready to go when you need it.