Lighting Decision - help!

[skyphix]

Here's the situation;

I work for a school and the Director of Technology/On Staff Photographer wants to buy a small lighting kit for use for video (green screen, in conjunction with other lights) and photo (student photos for their ID cards, NOT the yearbook photos). He likes Lowel products as he's used them in the past. The rooms where the photos will be taken mainly consist of flourescent lighting, so that must be taken into consideration.

So, here are his choices and he asked me to get some opinions and do a bit of research on what ones were suggested for our situation. Of course, this is the first place I come for photography information :D

Option 1: Lowel Tota Omni Go-96 Tungsten 2 Light Kit (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=285829&is=REG&addedTroughType=search) (His immediate favorite)

Option 2:Lowel GO Tube Kit (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=285787&is=REG&addedTroughType=search)

Option 3: Lowel GO Pro Visions Kit (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=285761&is=REG&addedTroughType=search)

So, Those are his three picks and the ones I am to research, however, I am open to other, equal or greater values in good equipment for the same price.

So, thanks in advance, and as always thanks for being my constant source for information :)

[chtgrubbs]

I think he's right. I use TotaLights alot, but for broad flat lighting like washing a cyc or lighting a large group. They are not as controllable as the Omni light for portraits. You might want to ad a Totalight for lighting the background separately when using the Omnis as main and fill lights.

[KaplanMultimedia]

If you guys are going to be doing green-screen stuff, none of these light-kits will be enough for your needs. The three kits you showed had only two lights.You'll need at least two flood lights to evenly light the green-screen. If it is unevenly lit, you could have a very difficult time getting a clean key. I suggest getting at least 2-tota flood lights just for the green screen and then get an additional light-kit with barn-doors and diffusion (i.e. umbrella's or softbox) for your on-camera subjects. Usually that's a 3-light kit so you can do traditional 3-point lighting.

[skyphix]

Thanks for your responses :D

I'll let him know that probably the Omni-lights are what we should go with. We currently use three floodlights to light the backdrop evenly and it works well , but we get some nasty shadows on faces that we'd like to get rid of and thats where this lighting kit would come in.

We've also got a couple of diffusers and reflectors that we've used with the flood lights in the past but instead of getting more of those and still being unhappy we thought we'd go with a "put together" kit instead.

Thanks again!