6500 Degree Compact Flourescents

[:)>]

I would not have guessed it, but I put some of these in my home and I had a visceral reaction against them. I was appalled at the tint of the light. I switched them out for 2700 degree bulbs and am super pleased.

Who likes the 6500 degree ones? Why?

Also, I am only just beginning a fascination with this stuff and have come to believe that compact flourescents are the way to go as the LED's are too pricey and don't use the best available LED's... am I wrong?

 

[mattheww50]

The plants will appreciate 6500K lighting, but that's about all. Just to add insult to injury, the 6500K CFL's often have a low Color Rendition index as a 'bonus'.

Normal sunshine is about 5000K, and I found high CRI 4400K fluorescent lamps to give very good all around color rendition.I don't think I have ever bought anything with a color temp above 5000K.

 

[Random Guy]

You may not have had enough light to make 6500K look good. Something called the Kruithof curve demonstrates the relationship between luminance, color temperature, and comfort.

Answering the original question, I personally prefer a space that is lit to look more light daylight. As a result, my preference for lighting spaces is with GE F32T8/SPX50/ECO lamps. That is a standard 4' long fluorescent lamp with a color temperature of 5000K and a CRI of about 86. Cheap, efficient, and good quality light. What's not to like?

 

[blasterman]

6500 degree CFLs are hideous because of the mediocre CRI combined with high kelvin. Light emitted by these things looks like an autopsy room in a crime drama because they are significantly lacking huge chunks of the warmer visual spectrum. They are becoming increasingly less common in big box stores, likely due to irrate customers who see the splashy 'Full Spectrum' label on the box. They have about as much in common with open sunlight as chinese beehive lights share with Cree LR24s.

The only things that like these types of lamps are plants. The other advantage is that 6500k CFLs have very high perceptual intensity and generally appear brighter per watt than lower temp CFLs. They make great outdoor floods, running porch lights, etc.

I'm currently working in an office area running 5500k high CRI fluorescents for quality control purposes, and there's no comparison to the cheap CFLs talked about in this thread. 4100-4500k is generally regarded as neutral white from a subjective standpoint, and are becoming more common in Big Box stores.

 

[John_Galt]

My parents decided to replace our front porch light with a CFL, b/c they were tired of having to change a bulb every 16-18 months. So my dad, in all his genius, decided to put in a 100 watt equivalent CFL, in place of the standard 60 watter...

He picked out a 6500k bulb, put it in, and, voila, the house looked like something out of a horror movie... Nothing looked right, colors were off, everything looked misshapen... 5 minutes of that, and he replaced it with a 60 watt incandescent...

 

[jtr1962]

Putting aside that most CFLs, whether warm or cool, have CRIs in the low 80s at best, 2700K to 6500K is a huge jump. First time I decided to try a 6500K, I thought it looked a little odd at first ( and this is coming from someone who has used cool fluorescents for a long time ). It was MUCH bluer than the usual cool white. That being said, I eventually became used to it. Then again, this CFL had pretty decent CRI. I've seen supposedly 6500K, or daylight, CFLs which not only had awful CRI, but weren't anywhere near 6500K. Some of them looked to be well in excess of 8000K. I don't think anybody can get used to something like that.

And my reactions are similar on the other end of the scale. 2700K, 3000K I just find disgustingly yellow whether it's coming from a CFL or incandescent. Subjectively, I find the warm CFLs to be worse than incandescents because they often resemble a sodium vapor light in their tint. So for me it's 5000K to 5500K, high CRI. Generally it's much easier and cheaper to do that with linear tubes as opposed to CFLs, so this is what I use. In fact, regardless of one's preferred preference, linear tubes have always seemed a lot more consistent in their tint between manufacturers than CFLs.

So anyway, yes, there are people that prefer cooler lighting, provided it has decently high CRI. These types of preferences seem to be a cultural and regional type of thing. From what I understand, in Japan 5000K is mostly what people use to light their homes if they have a choice. And in tropical areas cooler lighting is generally preferred. Here in the states it depends. Just looking in houses when I go for walks, it seems both neutral white 3500K and 5000K seem to be catching on now that people are starting to realize they're not limited to incandescent-type light with these things. It's not common by any means, but I suspect if all different options were tried the majority would prefer 3500K or better. Just taking that step up from 2700K to 3500K makes things look 100 times better.

 

[Phaserburn]

Actually, I like 6500 bulbs for specific lamps, ones with orange/tan colored shades. I find that you still get warm light because of the shade, but not excessively yellow. YMMV. That, and I like them for rooms with off white/beige colors.

 

[blasterman]

jtr, I performed an interesting test this fall where I shot several different artifical light sources using a mixed test target of mixed crayons and other full tone targets. I then shot the same target set out doors under a clear sunny sky. Everything was shot in manual / RAW mode, and converted with the same exact parameters.

Results were interesting. In terms of over-all color balance the high temp cheap CFLs matched open sunlight a lot better than warm-white CFLs. When the warm-white CFLs were adjusted for color temp in RAW there wasn't much difference in terms of individual colors -vs- high temp CFLs, so this proves the types of phosphors used are pretty much the same but in different balance. I didn't have a high CRI fluorescent source to test.

What got really interesting was when I threw a 5600k LED in the mix. In this case a cool white Bridgelux because they have specified color temps, and most commercial grade LEDs share a similiar spectral graph.

The Bridgelux showed a similiar over-all color temp to the 'blueish' CFL, but individual color response was more subdued and even. This tends to show that indeed the big problem with cheap, high K CFLs is not just their typically low CRI, but their phosphors have more ragged color spikes than LED or higher CRI / higher quality commercial fluorescent tubes. This might be the perceptual 'smoking gun' we are all griping about. At times I wish I had a lab full of gear to test this.

Also, I'm just making an intuitive guess, but cheap CFLs seems to be more lacking in far red than even LED.

 

[purduephotog]

I would not have guessed it, but I put some of these in my home and I had a visceral reaction against them. I was appalled at the tint of the light. I switched them out for 2700 degree bulbs and am super pleased.

Who likes the 6500 degree ones? Why?

Also, I am only just beginning a fascination with this stuff and have come to believe that compact flourescents are the way to go as the LED's are too pricey and don't use the best available LED's... am I wrong?

The lights were probably too dim or were not very high in the CRI front.

Who likes them? I do. Most of my coworkers do. In fact, we have entire labs set up with them. Fact of the matter is, once you remove all other sources of light your eyeballs will switch over and you'll not know the difference.

Well, mostly, as your eyes can not completely adapt to the 2700/3200k lights tungsten, so there is some residual warmness. But look at it this way- if I were to go shoot a photo outdoors right now I'd get about 8200K. That's the light I see when I look outside- and my eyes don't mind it at all- because it's so much brighter than what you get out of those rinky dinky bulbs.

And for measurements that matter in terms of color, 6500K is the only way to go.

Perhaps the manufacturer of your bulbs is suspect? If you'd really like I'll check when I get back to work who we source (And recommend) ours from- we do test them regularly and I know we just dropped a vendor because they were going out of spec.

Anyway... just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. You may just not have given it a long enough time.

 

[blasterman]

Your eyes can't adapt to a light source that's missing entire color ranges. It only works if you're in a grey room.

This is why 5000-5500k high CRI fluorescent tubes are a commercial standard. Replacing those with Big Box variety 6500k CFLs will get you fired.

 

[purduephotog]

Your eyes can't adapt to a light source that's missing entire color ranges. It only works if you're in a grey room.

.... actually, I am in a grey room....

 

[blasterman]

In fact, we have entire labs set up with them

Not trying to bicker here, but again, I'm trying to quantify what is so acceptable about low CRI / high K Chinese CFLs? The OP hates the darn things, and I agree with him.

I've been in countless quality control labs for every possible industry, and they all use much higher end lighting. High End actuallybeing a conventional fluorescent light bay running 4200-5500k tubes that are actually cheaper, run longer, and have far better color than the CFLs being discussed here. The real expensive tubes with mid 90's CRI tend to be in quality control areas or professional photo labs.

There are screw in CFLs that have the same phosphors and color quality of the better tubes. Retail wise you typically find them in fabric / hobby stores, or can order them online through lighting specialty shops. They are not something you find at Home Depot or Lowes, and those bulbs are the nasty ones I'm 99% sure the OP is referring to.

 

[JohnR66]

I had some high CRI 6500K F40T12 tubes once I got for photography. They wern't too bad, but were not that bright (this was 15 years ago).

My preference is 3500K to around 4100K for lighting up my house.

It will be interesting to see what the most popular color temp is well into the future when high CRI light sources replaces incandescent.

 

[Light Sabre]

I prefer 4100K. Less is too yellow and more is too blue. Going by the reflections of the 4100K CFL's in my eye glasses, I see violet down to orange with only a sliver of red. I was using 3500k CFL's and they were too yellow for me so I replaced them all with 4100's.

 

[purduephotog]

Not trying to bicker here, but again, I'm trying to quantify what is so acceptable about low CRI / high K Chinese CFLs? The OP hates the darn things, and I agree with him.

I've been in countless quality control labs for every possible industry, and they all use much higher end lighting. High End actuallybeing a conventional fluorescent light bay running 4200-5500k tubes that are actually cheaper, run longer, and have far better color than the CFLs being discussed here. The real expensive tubes with mid 90's CRI tend to be in quality control areas or professional photo labs.

There are screw in CFLs that have the same phosphors and color quality of the better tubes. Retail wise you typically find them in fabric / hobby stores, or can order them online through lighting specialty shops. They are not something you find at Home Depot or Lowes, and those bulbs are the nasty ones I'm 99% sure the OP is referring to.

Probably is. The bulbs we buy are about 20$ a piece, if I remember correctly- that's why I'm pushing the LED research. Every time we burn out a bulb in a lab we have to trash an entire fixture worth (actually, we just put them in storage until another burns out) so we can keep them color matched.

 

[balou]

Who likes the 6500 degree ones? Why?

Sorry to be anal about that... but it's just kelvin, not degrees kelvin.

You may not have had enough light to make 6500K look good. Something called the Kruithof curve demonstrates the relationship between luminance, color temperature, and comfort.

Answering the original question, I personally prefer a space that is lit to look more light daylight. As a result, my preference for lighting spaces is with GE F32T8/SPX50/ECO lamps. That is a standard 4' long fluorescent lamp with a color temperature of 5000K and a CRI of about 86. Cheap, efficient, and good quality light. What's not to like?

I wonder if the Kruithof curve will change - the color temp of incans is getting higher (think carbon filament vs tungsten filament halogen bulb), incans are now phased out all together, people are getting more acquainted to coolwhite LED lights...

About your question... I think daylight CFLs look very 'clinical'. I don't have personal experiences with them, but my flatmate has one (that's actually my CFL she's using, never got to try it myself). Atm I have a 40W pre-ban tungsten bulb, and it's definitely to warm. The 30W halogen screw-in bulb with integrated 12V supply and infrared reflection coating (60W equiv) I had before was quite nice.

Cree 5A bin looks nice too (about 5000K). WC to cold...
so I'd say my preference lies in the 4000-6000K range, depending whether I want it cozy or 'work atmosphere' (and most of the time I want 'work')

 

[hoongern]

Well, my entire house is lit up with 6500K (or there-about) CFLs, and honestly, they're fine to me. I think that happens when you're brought up from young, for 50+ years (for my parents) or 20+ years (for myself) with CFL (even low CRI). We just can't stand incan or warm lighting because all the colors look wrong.

On the flipside, I would think that someone who has been using incan for their whole life, when trying out these kinda CFLs, would barf because they're just not used to it and all the colors look wrong, as you said =)

So - it all has to do with what you're used to when you were brought up, and how your brain was trained to recognize colors. Of course, I'm sure there are some who can adapt.

Of course, CRI should always be as high as possible at whatever tint is chosen.

(P.S. I LOVE the 100 CRI of incans, but can't get used to the 3000-4000K tints)