Hi guys, I'm wanting to buy a light for reception and I'm tossing between lowel tota and omni light. Which one would you recommend? I'm after a light that is strong enough to light the whole dance floor but still soft.

At the moment i'm using the lowel IDlight 100w but its not strong enough most of the time...

Feel free to send me your other recommendations as well for other lights.

Thank you

Santo

A Tota is a very broad and un-focused light an Omni is a narrow focused light with the barn doors. If you just want to throw light all over the place go tota. If you wan to focus light on a subject go omni. Different tools for different jobs. Neither is a soft light though.

yea, you're right Jerry. Neither is soft.. I guess I kinda hoped they were :P

ermm.. What about 650w red head? or 500w fresnel sort of thing? I see still motion is using big light to light the reception. I really want to have something that can give even lighting to the floor..

I'm thinking about getting a 250w omni for the key, and then use my 100w IDlight as a fill/back light in the opposite direction

what do you think?

Hi Susanto, I would get two 250W Omni (i.e if you really want to light-up the dance floor or if the venue is really large). If you want soft lights you can try to look-up the Lowell Rifa, it looks too big for me but I have seen it used for weddings (lighting up the presidential table). Still Motion seems to use truss for their lighting, not to sure if that is theirs or the DJs.

I don't do this often, but when I do I choose to use a wide focused fill light. Some times this is nothing more than a 750 watt contractor's work light bounced off of a low ceiling or a studio umbrella. May sound odd, but when attached to a small dimmer I am able to place just enough fill light to balance my on camera light. Works quite well.

A narrow beam spotlight, like the Tota, will soften with distance. Lumens will drop as well. I often used Totas in business meetings as backlights when I could mount them 20 feet or more away from the area of focus.

However you choose to go, try and keep the color temperature around 3200 degrees Kelvin or higher. Also experiment, as every venue has different qualities.

There is also an excellent post by Mark Van Lanken on this subject. I believe it is within this category.