[mattdm]

I've yet to find a CFL which puts out a full enough spectrum to make my eyes happy, let alone photography. Even the ones which claim to be daylight-balanced are missing wide swaths of spectrum, and it shows when you look at anything brightly colored.

As for flickering: most decent ones should have an electronic ballast which will be much, much faster than 60hz.

And on the more off-topic note, there were a couple of good articles on the environmental pros and cons of CFLs on Salon.com last year:

Welcome to the compact fluorescent twilight zone - How the World Works - Salon.com

and

Compact fluorescents | Salon Life (make sure to read the "editor's choice" letters too).

But also, I found an interesting full-cycle (including manufacturing) energy analysis here:

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs ? A Tale From Dust to Dust | the Watt

which concludes that even taking that into consideration, a mere 50 hours is the break-even point for energy. (However, that doesn't take into account environmental or social/labor factors.)

[opfor]

Has anyone tried the "daylight" CFLs yet. Went into a large craft shop just before X-mas and found some daylight CFLs. Bought a couple to test them out, just haven't gotten a round tuit yet...:-)
According to the packaging, they are made so crafters don't have to worry about color casts.

[F-Stop]

I bought this little setup eBay Booster Kit a year ago and must say for what I paid it's nice for a beginner and has more control due to constant lighting. The downside is watts per second. If I were to buy again due to versatility and power it would be Alien Bees.

Fluorescent Lighting Kits

Fluorescent Light Head Set

While the price was good, quality isn't exactly stellar. With the eBay Booster kit you get the 20" soft boxes. I didn't have much luck with the 3224 lamp holders, 2 for not being able to tighten enough to hold the heads up, a 3rd for shorting out and blowing a breaker every time I turned it on. The equipment is not CAS-US Approved and the sticker on it says only use 50W strobes so really they are marketing it for the wrong purpose but hey, it's just a light socket. Due to the problems I had with them I requested replacements for the 3245 holder and light boxes at no cost which they surprisingly sent at no charge or extra shipping. Due to a language barrier I had to email Linco a few times for a missing cross bar for my background support which I paid for but never received; again, sent free of charge.

Fluorescent Lighting for People http://www.flickr.com/groups/640582@N21/

Few images of the results:






2 Fluorescent Soft Boxes - 1 on each side
1 Fluorescent Reflector Lamp Bounced to Ceiling
1 Fluorescent Reflector Lamp w/Barn Door at my left open 50%
200w Total - Actual Output 700w
ISO 400
1/90
f/5.6

[Ben_Edict]

I've yet to find a CFL which puts out a full enough spectrum to make my eyes happy, let alone photography. Even the ones which claim to be daylight-balanced are missing wide swaths of spectrum, and it shows when you look at anything brightly colored.

As for flickering: most decent ones should have an electronic ballast which will be much, much faster than 60hz.

But also, I found an interesting full-cycle (including manufacturing) energy analysis here:

which concludes that even taking that into consideration, a mere 50 hours is the break-even point for energy. (However, that doesn't take into account environmental or social/labor factors.)

Thanks Matt for the links.

There are a few things, which are obviously not widely known:

1. you can buy full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs, which are widely used as reference lighting for professional colour reproduction. These lights have an extended spectrum that even reaches into UV (not at a dangerous level), so emulating daylight to more than 99% and reaching cololur reproduction class A easily.

I have been using these as my workplace light for the last nearly 15 years and am very happy. It mixes without any visible interference with natural light from the windows to my right.

2. the usual household daylight bulbs have indeed gaps in their spectrum, but apart from that they give a light, which can be used with good results for photography. I use these as the general lighting in my office. It mixes well with the full-spectrum bulbs. Only when scrutinizing prints and especially the colour of textiles the missing light colours can be visible - a full-spectrum lamp is much better for really good colour rendition.

3. flickering in general is a problem with those longish fluorescent tubes. It is much less visible with the small sized energy saving bulbs. And many current lamps have an integrated electronic control circuit (high-frequency), which eliminates any flicker. I have never had problems with the small household sized bulbs and flicker for photography, as was common with the tubes in the past.

Sure LEDs will be the most probably alternative in the future. But the production process is not really cleaner than that of fluorescent light and currently they are simply way too dim.

Ben

[George Lama]

We've had CFLs in our home since the day we moved in 3 years ago. They are not full spectrum daylight, just the standard, and they do have the yellow glow near the incandescent range as far as eyes can see. We do it for the energy savings, not necessarily for the whiteness.

For my photography, I just compensate with flash and white balancing.

In cold days, they do take a while to warm up, so they will start on lower light, then gradually get brighter. I have never seen any of our bulbs flicker whatsoever unless the bulb is about to die (only one has so far).

The reason CFLs are dangerous is very simple - just like regular fluorescents, they contain mercury. Should one break, you're contaminating the area with this poisonous metal. Again - same as the large fluorescent tubes so many of us have at work, in our basement workshops, and in our sheds and garages.

So yes - you need to be careful not to break any of these.

We have around 30 CFL bulbs in our home - the energy savings and therefore the lower energy footprint are too high to ignore -

[Gooshin]

I agree with Wheatfield. While CFLs may save energy in use, they are far more damaging to the environment when it comes to manufacture/disposal.

Also, some people (like me) are very sensitive to the flicker -- it can trigger migraine headaches.

are you a figher jet pilot or what?

[SCGushue]

I think high-intensity LED lamps will probably become the preferred lamp type at some point. They're much less complex and consume even less power. But the materials and manufacturing technology to make them last long enough at the required brightness levels isn't there yet...

Sean,

I tend to agree with you on the possibilities of LED's going forward. Output management can always be reved up. The only downside... they are so long lasting and require so little energy as to make it potentially unprofitable (due to a "lack" of planned obsolecence). If the profit motive isn't high enough... what is the incentive?

And to Wheatfield. I agree with you. But when has any politician "really" done the right or ethical thing for real people? Most likey never! I see them as illusionists whom appear to be doing the right thing when in fact they are doing what serves their own interest with a verbal slight of hand.

Stephen

[Gooshin]

we used to wire a bunch of LED's into those little plastic kit circuit boards in electronics class then pass high voltage through them blowing the crap out of them....

good times, good times...

[stewart_photo]

(snip) My problem with CFL bulbs relates to their manufacture, (snip)

The primary problem I have with Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs (or fluorescent lamps of nearly any type) is that they almost never produce anywhere near the incandescent equivalent output claimed by the various manufacturers. For example, CFL bulbs claiming to be equal to a 60-watt incandescent bulb are usually much closer to the light output of a 30-40-watt incandescent bulb.

Energy savings is the primary claim to fame of these household fluorescent lamps, but you're obviously not saving all that much energy if you have to purchase a fluorescent bulb claiming an equivalence of 100-150-watts to replace a 60-watt incandescent bulb (to achieve roughly equal light intensity). Certainly not enough to justify the significantly higher cost of these household fluorescent bulbs.

Anyway, it appears we, as citizens, will simply have no choice in the matter very shortly. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively ban the sell of incandescent bulbs above 40-watts and below 150-watts in the United States by January 2014. Nothing in this legislation requires fluorescent lamp manufacturers to be more honest in their incandescent equivalent output claims.

stewart


-

[Gooshin]

i bought a 40 watt equivalent CFL bulb about a month ago, it claimed to produce 3100 lumens

the thing is BRRRIIGGHHHTTT

1 bulb added ~3 stops to a scene 15 feet away from it

its rated at 6000K but whatever, i like blue tints.

[DAZ]

we used to wire a bunch of LED's into those little plastic kit circuit boards in electronics class then pass high voltage through them blowing the crap out of them....

good times, good times...

Yes, I remember doing “experiments” in school with one shot NEDs (Noise Emitting diode). Yes the good old days.

My friend had a problem with the lights on the side of his car gate. The lights are on the gate posts so you can see to not hit the gate. Ever light he tried (all kinds of CFL and incandescent) would self destruct. The longest he could get a light to last was 3 months. Most would last weeks and some only days. The combination of the hot/cold and the banging of the gate opening and closing was just too much for the lights. He asked me if I had any ideas. I had been looking at the LED lights and suggested he get 2 low wattage bulbs. After a year the 2 are still going strong. When LED lights start to go it is slow over years as the individual LEDs go and the light slowly gets dimmer. How long they last is more on how dim you let it get before you say you need to replace the light. 80 percent as bright as the light started after 10-15 years of constant use not unreasonable. LEDs don’t loose much life with on and off use unlike CFL and incandescent lights.

Before he put them in his gate we played with them some. Even though the lights were rated as equivalent to 40W incandescent lights because the color was better to the eye they looked a little brighter then the 60W incandescent. This is probable an optical illusion. The color looked better to me then the CFL we compared it too.

Right now the initial cost of LEDs are higher then CFL but the total cost of use (because they last so long and use less then CFL) is better then CFL. The cost is going down and just like CFL over incandescent lights now. The main limit on how bright is the high initial cost. They just add more LEDs but that ups the cost. Right now you can get LED at more the 150W equivalents. You can even get LEDs as drop-in replacements for the long florescent lights. LEDs are coming but this push for CFL over LED is an environmental problem in the making that is slowing the interdiction of LEDs. CFL are a dead end that the longer we go down the more it is going to cost.

DAZ

[Marc Sabatella]

Energy savings is the primary claim to fame of these household fluorescent lamps, but you're obviously not saving all that much energy if you have to purchase a 100-125-watt fluorescent bulb to replace a 60-watt incandescent bulb.

I doubt you've ever seen a 100W CFL bulb sold for household use. The ones listed as 100W "equivalent" (I guess that's with the crop factor :-) are maybe 20-25W. So yes, you're still saving a significant amount of energy in use, and they also *do* last enough longer to *more* than pay for the difference in purchases cost.

Whether or not any of that is enough to overcome the other environmental downsides, I cannot say. Any more than I can definitely answer paper or plastic, cloth or disposable.

BTW, I suspect that when they claim a bulb has the equivalent output of a 60W incandescent bulb, that probably *is* true in some measurable sense, but perhaps because of the difference in spectrums, our eyes don't *perceive* it as being quite as bright.

[stewart_photo]

I doubt you've ever seen a 100W CFL bulb sold for household use. (snip)

Sorry, Marc. I meant a fluorescent bulb claiming an equivalence of 100-150-watts and have corrected my previous message to correct that oversight.

stewart

Yes, they still flicker.
My problem with CFL bulbs relates to their manufacture, which is dirty enough that they have to be made in a country that has poor environmental standards, they have all sorts of heavy metals in them, they are hard to recycle, facilities are fairly rare, and people just tend to toss them in the garbage when they expire, where they end up in landfills leaking toxins into the groundwater. If they aren't used in an upright position, they have a fairly high risk of overheating, which both shortens their life and can be a fire hazard.
I have seen CFLs that have exploded in use, which is really messy.

The power companies love them because with mandated use, which is coming in Canada via legislation banning the sale of tungsten filament lamps, they think they will be able to put off infrastructure upgrades, thereby keeping power relatively cheap, which the politicians like (in Canada, most, if not all power generation is done by publicly owned utilities).

I have yet to talk to one electrical contractor (I do general contracting) that is truly behind the things. I kind of think that if these guys don't like them, there is probably something to distrust about them.

They have mercury in them. One drop. 1 report I saw put the reliability of most available in the States at about 50%. How many people actually recycle them versus just put them in the gatbage can? And in all honesty I might be one of the garbage can types.

So your descision. Global Warming or mercury pollution of groundwater. If you believe in the global warming hoax anyway.

And since they're going to ban incans of certain wattages what happens when you break one in a reflector while working on the car?

I've yet to find a CFL which puts out a full enough spectrum to make my eyes happy, let alone photography. Even the ones which claim to be daylight-balanced are missing wide swaths of spectrum, and it shows when you look at anything brightly colored.

What about a full spectrum for planted fishtanks? They aren't cheap though.