Lighting Tip, Avenger D200 Grip Head

The Avenger D200 Grip Head

An essential accessory for all photographers who light!

The Avenger D200 Grip Head is one of those bits of lighting kit which most will never have heard of, yet alone own. It is an inexpensive way of converting a standard lighting stand into a mini boom arm, a bit like the substantially more expensive and less portable C or Century stand.

Used with a Sunbounce Mini Micro reflector

you have the ideal way to attach the reflector to a light stand in the studio or on location.

I keep one handy to use with my California Sunbounce Micro Mini either as a below the chin chin fill for beauty set-ups. The joy of this set up is versatility; the D200 grip head has a number of differing diameter channels allowing you to hold rod or tubes as narrow as 3 mm (1/8th inch) up to 16 mm (5/8th inch) which is one of the film, TV and stills photography standard spigot attachment sizes!

16 mm (5/8th inch) metal tube or rod makes an ideal short boom arm

To make a boom arm all you need is a length of 16 mm (5/8th inch) steel or aluminium tube from the local DIY store and you're on your way! You can use this to attach and place either a hot shoe flash or Speedlite in a position where a light stand would normally get in the way of your shot. You can even create a flag to control light spill by using a piece of Rosco Photofoil. I've even used it to hold a Cookie or Cookaloris which is used to break up light into a pattern.

Using the D200 and a short boom allows you to position your flash so that the stand doesn't intrude into your shots.

The D200 allows you to use other accessories including hot shoe flash

or create a flag to control light spill using Rosco Photofoil

Cookie created with Rosco Photofoil attached to a boom on a light stand using the Avenger D200 Grip Head.

The Avenger D200 Grip Head is distributed in the UK by Manfrotto and is available from The Flash Centre (London, Birmingham, Leeds) contact Simon Burfoot  and other fine photography resellers.