advice for cheap lighting stands & optical triggers

Hi folks
I'm looking to play a bit with some of camera flash, using some optical triggers.

I seem to remember s/o saying the SKY4 ones available on ebay are OK (not p-ttl compatible, so manual only), but can't remember the ID of the seller, anyone recommend any particular ebay seller?

Also I think I will need a couple of stands to be able to mount the flashguns to, I'm looking for cheep-cheep but still cheerful, can anyone recommend anything please ? in a perfect world I'd be able to use later with a softbox, but not essential.

finally, anywhere suggest resources I can read up on flash technique please?

thanks folks

before you buy any thing I would recomend you check out these site's
www.studiolighting.net

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

strobist is a great site for learning about off camera flash
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
this section should help you a lot.
do you have any flashes at the moment?

Don't know how much you're looking to spend, what sort of setup you're looking for, and what you already have but I'm sorely tempted by the twin 300W setup here:
http://www.photodeals.co.uk/home.php?cat=5

Have a look on ebay, loads of stuff there. Search for sky4 slave.

Are you using normal battery flashguns? If you are, remember that they are much lighter than studio flash and you can improvise a lot more.

Microphone stands are cheap, got a couple of boom mike stands in Lidl supermarket, I think they were about £7.00 each! Most flashguns and the cube slaves can be bolted to home made brackets using 1/4" Whitworth screw threads.
Reflectors and the like are all around us. White and coloured card, silver radiator foil from B&Q. Car sunshades come in silver and gold foil, with white on the back. Check out your local Pound shop for white poly decorating sheets for defuser and reflector material. Also good for sets of spring clips to hold all this material in place. Bits of polystyrene for reflectors. Garden centre for that weed control fabric as matt black 'reflector'.

Just a few ideas but ingenuity is the key.

thanks for the links for the sites peter.

yes I do have a few flashguns - AF540FGZ (PTTL), AF240FT(TTL), AF200T, AF240Z both thyristor - oh and a sigma 430 or somthing kicking about somewhere, I must sell a few !

hmmm, I have thought about this type of thing, but to be honest I doubt I would use it again ! My preference is to spend about 1/10th of this amount and get my head round basic lighting principles and balance of ambient light to flash. The other point is that the largest space I have available as a 'studio' is in our living room, so it's not easily available - it can be done but it's a hassle

thanks for the tip on stands, that's been bugging me - cheapest tripod I could find was significantly more than that !

Try here.....from 'cheap cheap' all the way up. I got a background stand from here & it does the job for me - in a space previously occupied by a 'study'.
I also purchased a single stand light.....they accidentally sent two - and only charged for one! - double cheap

got a sky3 and a sky4 in the end, with fully charged batteries the AF200T triggered off a sky3 even seems to work with PTTL (for a while anyway) - obviously manual is the way to go tho !

where's "here" please ?

oops......sorry...... http://www.backdropsource.co.uk/products.asp?mcid=17&scid=52&scdesc=complete-lig...