Tomorrow is first paid wedding--any advice?

[Wendy Lake]

Thanks for the good ideas Jason. Networking is probably the hardest thing for me at this point. And I don't want to pay to advertise either. I am posted on free sites though and I paid for a local newspaper for a month with zero results. I have plans to go to florists, event planners, but have needed a demo for that. I work full time outside this business, so my time has been limited and it will be like this for quite some time. Eventually, I'd like to move full time into wedding movie making.

[Stephen J. Williams]

I used the VL-10 also until i had to sell it with my cam. It's a great light and i got all of the same responses. At first I did as you did and turned the light off, but after editing poorly lit functions I decided it would be better to explain that the light is needed.
I used to to tape wax/parchment paper over the cover. Sorta like what Don suggested.
Good luck on the edit.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Stephen J. Williams

I used the VL-10 also until i had to sell it with my cam. It's a great light and i got all of the same responses. At first I did as you did and turned the light off, but after editing poorly lit functions I decided it would be better to explain that the light is needed.
I used to to tape wax/parchment paper over the cover. Sorta like what Don suggested.
Good luck on the edit.

I went through 2 bulbs in two weddings with that device, so it was costing me $25 every time I used it at a wedding. A friend of mine is a LED & electronics hobbiest. He made a screw on (not easy to swap out) 3x2 LED array to replace the Halogen bulb on the Canon VL-10li. It is 4 times as bright now. The LED array fits inside of my Micro Apollo softbox so I can cut down the intensity add diffusion. Its viable reach is about 10 feet now (instead of 4-6 with the stock halogen bulb) and because of the diffuser there are fewer harsh shadows.

One of these days I was going to create a post for it. It is pretty slick. Unfortunately my friend is not interested in making a bunch of these, so this will be the only one he makes. Pitty too, because this really does do the job very well.

[Stephen J. Williams]

Jason, thats great craftsmanship. Your lucky to have a friend so handy. Maybe you can post some details about it. Like for example what kind of LED's were used, and what he made the box out of. I'm an electrician by trade and would be interested in making something like that my self...