Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand review: elegant simplicity and sturdy support for backdrop lighting

Building on 50 years of experience, Manfrotto is best known for its tripods but also has a wide range of other photographic accessories in its catalog, ranging from camera bags and backpacks to studio stands, supports, lighting control paraphernalia, and backdrops. 

Something of a specialist item, the Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand offers ground-level lighting support and aims to take its place in the ranks of the best light stands, as well as offering low-level support for the best photography lighting kits and the best LED light panels.

Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand: Specifications

Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand: Price

With Italian design flair and high-end build quality, Manfrotto has found a place in the hearts of many photographers worldwide. For tripods in particular, Manfrotto is a name that we tend to trust, and indeed to entrust with our precious cameras and lenses. However, Manfrotto products don’t tend to come cheap. The Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand is a relatively cut-price item, costing around $55/£49, and while it’s fairly basic, it’s well made and certainly serves a purpose, making it a good buy.

Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand: Design & Handling

I find that I can get really nice studio lighting setups at home using just one or two flash heads or LED panels, for example using a key light and a fill/hair light. There’s a problem though, in that backgrounds tend to look dull and gloomy. That’s especially true if I’m using a white background, which will generally dim down to an unappealing mid-gray. 

The answer is to use a dedicated backdrop light to brighten it up, so that my whites stay white, so to speak. However, that brings another problem. Mounted on a regular light stand, even at its shortest setting, a backdrop light will be quite high up and often creep into the composition unless I’m being constantly careful to keep it directly behind the person or object while I’m shooting. 

That’s where the Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand comes to the fore, or rather exits the frame.

The big idea behind this light stand is that it’s so small. It has a fixed operating height of just 8.9cm / 3.5", so the backdrop light sits pretty much at floor level and can be angled up as necessary to effectively illuminate the backdrop.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve been hired to take portraits of clients at their homes or at corporate venues. Even with a modest collection of camera kit, studio lighting, and a backdrop, things can quickly get out of hand and there can be several bags of gear to take along for the job. One thing I really like about this backdrop stand is that it folds down small and flat, measuring just over 30cm / 1’ in length. Each of the three legs has a flat profile and swings around so that they’re placed one on top of the other. The only protruding part is the riser that forms the central mount, which has a threaded base held in place with a nyloc nut that prevents unwanted loosening or tightening.

To set up the stand for lighting duty, it’s a simple matter of rotating the two top legs of the three-leg stand through an arc so that they’re evenly spaced. Protruding studs at the top of each leg make it easy to do this, as you basically rotate each of the two upper legs until they won’t turn any more. The whole procedure takes just a few seconds, being quick, easy and highly effective.

When set up for use, the stand rests on rubber feet that have a nice anti-slip finish. There’s a further bit of trickery up top. The mounting stud for studio flash heads or LED panels has a standard 5/8" receiver. 

However, there’s also a brass spigot which is reversible in its locking receptacle, and has an additional 3/8” attachment thread on one end and a 1/4" thread at the other. This gives extra options for mounting a flashgun on a threaded base plate or other lamps that require either of the two standard threaded attachment types.

Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand: Performance

Supports that are small and lightweight often compromise sturdiness and rigidity. That’s certainly not the case here. Despite weighing a mere 1kg / 2.2lb, the stand has a payload rating of 15kg / 33lb. That’s more than enough to cater to pretty much any studio flash head or LED panel that I can think of.

With each leg protruding about 30cm / 1’ from the central point, the stand is easy to fit into tight spaces. And although the footprint is quite small, the fact that there’s no rising column means that the center of gravity is really low. There’s therefore virtually no risk of the stand toppling over, even with relatively heavy lamps being mounted on it. 

For testing, I used an Elinchrom D-Lite 2 flash head with a wide-angle reflector, which weighs in at 1.3kg / 2.9lb, and a Neewer NL660S LED light panel fitted with two rechargeable battery packs, with a weight of 2kg / 4.4lb.

Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand: Verdict

I find that a full-height light stand is awkward for using a backdrop light. Not only does it interfere with compositions, as if it’s constantly trying to make an appearance in the image frame, but it’s also unnecessarily big and bulky to carry around, or to stow away. For me, the Manfrotto 003 Backlite Stand is a neat, simple and elegant solution for low-level backdrop lighting. It’s also tough and really nicely made, making it very good value at the price.