just tried "Daylight" fluorescent bulbs - awesome!

[wquiles]

Man, I simply can't beleive how much nicer these are to the "standard" fluorescent bulbs I was using before. I put these in my office and I even had to go get my wife and show her how awesome and true-to-life these (Color Temperature - 5500K) bulbs really are

Everything else in my house uses the old "normal" ones and they look so yellow it is now anoying to use. If it were not for the money in exchanging all of them, I would swap them all today !!!

Anyone else using these "Daylight" fluorescent bulbs?

Will

[Bob_G]

I've been using one for years on the floor behind the tv for backlighting. IIRC from an article I read years ago when I was into video reproduction as a hobby, most store bought ones aren't "spectrum controlled" or something like that. In other words, the entire spectrum of light isn't daylight balanced, just a small part. There's a specialty brand which is, and is used in many high-end video room setups I believe.

[KevinL]

Try the Osram 23W Dulux daylight flourescents in screw base. I'm busy migrating everything that uses a screw base to these because of their instant-strike ballast - well, instant as in there is a barely perceptible 200 millisecond delay after you hit the switch before the 1330 lumens blow you away. This beats the STUFFING out of every other flourescent I've worked with, which flickers and flickers and takes forever to strike. Plus, at $4 a pop, they're cheap, affordable, and last forever (2000+ hours with 1-year guarantee against premature failure, guarantee card is in the box, free replacement!)

Plus, they are so white, they satisfy the most discriminating of users - machine vision, not human. My Canon 350D's automatic white balance interprets the flourescent as "true white", same as my LEDs. I use the 23W bulbs for short range illumination and extreme macro closeups (0.7X life size magnification with EF25 extender). $8 for the lamp and $4 for the bulb is much cheaper than the dedicated Macro Ring Light (multi-hundred $).

[Zigzago]

I use the 23W bulbs for short range illumination and extreme macro closeups (0.7X life size magnification with EF25 extender). $8 for the lamp and $4 for the bulb is much cheaper than the dedicated Macro Ring Light (multi-hundred $).

KevinL:
Where do you buy these (lamp and bulbs)? What kind of lamp is it?

I'm looking for a cheap photo light setup.

Thanks

[KevinL]

Dunno if you guys have Ikea furniture shops in your area, but they have great deals on desk lamps. I just buy anything that I like, that's cheap, that's metal, and has a screw base for the Osram bulbs. The Osram bulbs come from local hardware stores that don't do mail order.

I know this isn't much help and I apologize, but I bought all the equipment locally because I happened to stumble across it quite by chance.

If you need pictures of the lamp let me know and I can take some for you.

[ddaadd]

Absolutly, I found the daylight flourecents about a year ago and have just recently got my rec room (garage) converted over, 18 of the 48". Most of them positioned to bathe a vehicle in a blanket of daylight for detailing and polishing.

[wquiles]

Thanks Kevin - I will look for these Osram bulbs

Will

[Zelandeth]

Here's something else you might want to look into. As I recall from the datasheet (which I can't actually lay my hands on at the moment - it's on Osram's site though) these are also available in daylight (5000K). 1500Lm, 23W....and with a low output mode of 350Lm and 9W.

Osram Dulux EL Vario 23W

The one drawback I've noted with higher colour temperature lighting however, is that you really need to have a LOT of lighting. If there's a lot of light of a high CCT it looks great...but if you've got lower lighting levels I find it just looks wrong, often almost greyish. Which is why the other couple of daylight CFLs I have see little use beyond occasional lighting of things which are being photographed (I normally light the photographic area with a 35W Philips CDM ColourMaster metal halide lamp). At 9 and 15W they just aren't bright enough to light a room properly (this room always seems dark! - so needs a lot of light!).

[picard]

Where do you guys buy those fluorescent bulbs anyway? Are they cheap or really expensive?

[Trashman]

I bought a 150w (equivalent) 3-level Daylight flourescent bulb, but I didn't really like it all that much. I prefer warmer light for the home. It ended up in my girlfriend's living room. She recently got a new house mate to live in the adjacent room, and the house mate brought along her halogen torchier lamp. We told her that the halogen was a major fire hazzard and that we didn't think she should use it and we offered her the living room torchier (w/ the daylight flourescent). I told my girlfriend to tell the new house mate that she could always purchase a warm flourescent to replace the daylight bulb, but it turned out she actually prefered the daylight bulb!

I bought the daylight flourescent bulb from The Home Depot.

[CLHC]

Guess I'll have to try these out then. The Home Depot has them eh?

[Trashman]

I should have mentioned that they appear slightly bluish to me.

[cy]

just purchased a desk lamp at Sam's for $20, that has daylight balanced bulbs.

beautiful balanced light!

[pr5owner]

well when i moved out the first thing i did was scrap ALL incans in my house and replaced them with either LED bulbs or Phillips Daylight CFLs, there are no incans to speak of at my place anymore

[dudeldam]

Dear all,

just in front of me I have a specvtrometer made from paper as a kit for children, resolution is 5nm.

I´m telling you that because with this 6.80 euro tool, you can easily examine the spectra of lamps. It is available at www.astromedia.de and called "Handspektrometer".

Fluorescents are usually sold with a number like 645, 750, 837 or 965... at least in europe.

The first number tells you about the colour quality, the 2nd & 3rd about colour temp, so a "970" bulb makes a spectrum which is nearly complete, with only a few "dark lines", and makes nearly 7000K, so it is "blueish"; a "645" makes only a few discrete lines (for example violet, turkoise, green, orange and red), and is yellowish.

The best lamps in terms of colour quality are 9xx bulbs. Some special ones are not only having a gapless spectrum, but also a close-to-daylight intensity spectrum. They are called "lumilux de luxe daylight", "truelight", "biolight" or "biolux". I have them in use everywhere where I could win the everlasting discussion with my wife, who does not like fluorescents at all no matter how good they are.

For Osram products, there is a comparative spread sheet which tells you about output, bulb shape & size, colour qality, colour temperature a.s.o. in german, but easily understandable:
http://www.osram.de/pdf/service_corn...lumenkarte.pdf

"Farbtemperatur" means colour temp, "Farbwiedergabe" means colour rendering quality (100=sun). "entspricht GE" means "equivalent General Electric product, "entspricht phillips" means equivalent phillips product a.s.o.
so maybe this sheet is usable for U.S. inhabitants as well.

Don´t buy full spectrum lamps from esotherical money makers which also sell wonder medicine and other stuff for bored housewives with too-good-earning husbands. Buy full spectrum lamps from the sortiment of a quality brand. It is hard to figure out, but they ARE available without the money for the internet woodoo priests who unfortunately like to sell them as "depression medicine".

Regards

Dudeldam

[turbodog]

well when i moved out the first thing i did was scrap ALL incans in my house and replaced them with either LED bulbs or Phillips Daylight CFLs, there are no incans to speak of at my place anymore

Check the fridge.

[turbodog]

I found some nice 4100k CF bulbs. They're used everywhere, even the 4' fixtures.

But I saved some 6500k for my office.

[silver_pioneer]

I got two 48" daylights on my 55 gal aquarium.I like having the bluer color light on the 55gal.

[pedalinbob]

I want to try some GE "Sunshine" bulbs in my kitchen. They are 5000k and CRI 90.
There are currently "Kitchen and Bath"bulbs, which are 3000k and CRI 70. I find the color to be odd.

They also have a "Daylight" model, which is 6500k CRI 75.
The "Residential" tubes are 4100k and CRI 72.

Should be an interesting experiment!

Bob

[Ikonomi]

Hey KevinL, thanks for the tip about the Osram Dulux bulbs. Any chance you could take a pic so I know exactly what to look for? I'm going to try to find some.

[Vbeez]

I use daylight flourescent bulb in my house, panasonic quicklight, osram dulux, leuchtech lux pro, don't remember the rest. The only incan I have are in flashlights & cars

[Omega Man]

I've been to Target, Walmart, and True Value, and still have not seen any sort of bulbs with the word "Daylight" on them. Just Edison's Reveal, and the gamut of regular bulbs.
Where is everyone finding LED and Daylight bulbs?

[Spudman]

My wife is into sewing and just bought a tasklight called the Ott-lite. It uses daylight flourescent bulbs and is pretty neat. Unfortunately, the Ott bulbs are not screw in type, so you have to use their lamps. Here is the site where she bought hers and they were having a half price sale on the lamps and bulbs.

http://www.joanns.com/

These lights are still pricey and I'd like to find the screw in Osrams somewhere close or online.

EDIT: I just noticed they do sell a screw in replacement 20W bulb, but it is 25 bucks at half off. This isn't a deal, is it?

[PhotonWrangler]

Does that task light have an electronic ballast or a magnetic one? Electronically-ballasted lamps light up almost instantly, while magnetic ballast lamps go flicker-flicker-flickety-flickety-ON over a time period of about 3-5 seconds.

[Spudman]

I just checked and hers is the flickety flicker flick type. It folds up when not in use and to turn it on you just open it. By the time it is all the way open it has finished with the flicker.

[PhotonWrangler]

I just checked and hers is the flickety flicker flick type. It folds up when not in use and to turn it on you just open it. By the time it is all the way open it has finished with the flicker.

Thanks for checking, Spudman! I've been on a quest for an electronically-ballasted desk lamp for awhile. I've used the older magnetic ballast lamps and they're harder on my eyes than the newer ones; I'm sensitive to the 60hz strobing.

One of the things that I like about the screw-in CFL lamps is that they all have electronic ballasts these days.

[Paul_in_Maryland]

I installed some 48-inch daylight fluorescent tubes in our kitchen, and I love it. It makes every day feel like sunshine.

But I've had no luck installing daylight incandescents in our basement track lights. My wife and kids prefer the old-style yellowish lights.

I really wanted the daylight lights everywhere, because my indoor available-light photos (using film) would look more natural.

[chevrofreak]

I bought one of those 25w Lights of America sunlight bulbs for $4.84 at Walmart, the color is really quite blue. I think I'd prefer 4100K-5000K temp. Also, it burned out after less than a day of use

[Omega Man]

I bought one of those 25w Lights of America sunlight bulbs for $4.84 at Walmart, the color is really quite blue. I think I'd prefer 4100K-5000K temp. Also, it burned out after less than a day of use

Ha, JUST got a 2pack of the 75w/uses 20w ones this morning. Fired it up in my blacked out living room, and it looked very white to me. Nothing like sunlight, more like the white Q3's beam. I'll give it a few days and see how I like them.

EDIT: Well I returned them today, the color was really awful, like a blue-whitish office lighting. Very stark and harsh. Hopefully a trip to Home Depot will turn up some of the daylight and sunlight bulbs everyone else seems to be finding.

[The_LED_Museum]

...Also, it burned out after less than a day of use

LOA brand compact fluorescent light blubs are known to have an unusually high failure rate...this failure does not surprise me a bit.