Full Spectrum Lighting - Is it any better? 58
lennon asms: "Lighting in my apartment sucks. I am giving some thought to full-spectrum lighting fixtures, like the the Vita-lite. Some places say it's not any better than regular lighting, others say it's just great. What do you think?" I find the quality of lighting in my work environment to be very important. Would lights such as these be better than your standard soft-white or flourescent
bulbs?
Sonar is better. (Score:3, Funny)
There's only one person who can answer that.... (Score:2, Informative)
Whether you prefer "full spectrum lighting", "blacklight", normal lightbulbs, "warm" lightbulbs, darkness, daylight through the window, stroboscope, or any other form of lighting is up to you.
If you think "full spectrum lighting" will make you happy, try it, and see what you think. End of story.
Re:There's only one person who can answer that.... (Score:1)
Bounce the light (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have to do a lot of paper reading then this is not the best solution but for staring at a TV or monitor it works well for me.
Of course the other solution is not to do any work after dark!
Works for me (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference is quite amazing - I never realized how sickly yellow the old lights were. The new lights have much more blue in them, and really do seem more like natural sunlight. Now I feel like I have skylights in the ceiling.
I can't tell if changing the lighting improved my performance, but it did make feel more comfortable and alert in my office. My co-workers like to keep their office dim except for their monitors - not me, I find that a dark room strains my eyes and makes me sleepy. I may be an exception since a lot of programmers like a dim room setup, and in our main office the engineering wing has no fluorescent lights on at all. Still I find that I do my best work in a naturally lighted environment. Without windows, full spectrums lights are as close as I can get.
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Interesting)
The colors now are crisp and clear, and the price is just pennies or so above the normal cost of a 4 pack of regular bulbs. I went out and switched most of my house over, and will never go back! I used to think the headaches I got from staring at my PC all day was eyestrain, after I put these bulbs in they went away.
Amazing what a 30 cent change in lighting does, eh?
Re:Works for me (Score:2)
Wait a minute - how can we take the advice on coloration of lighting from someone who's colorblind?
</kidding>
heh heh heh... Seriously, though, I agree that the GE Reveal bulbs make a world of difference. (For the record, the glass in the bulbs is a bluish-purple color
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Works for me (Score:1)
I cross-stitch; lighting is extremely important - it lets you see your colors, how the floss lies, etc. Anyways, a friend of mine was looking at Ott-Lites, which are ~$40 full-spectrum compact flourescent bulbs.
This seemed a little steep to me; so I picked up a package of the GE Reveal bulbs and changed my front room bulbs (where I do most of my stitching). Even at $2.50 a package, I won't go back. Simply amazing difference.
-misao
Re:Works for me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Works for me (Score:2)
As an added bonus, it repels vampires and other creatures of the night.
Re:Works for me (Score:2, Interesting)
I've found that the intensity of the light is almost more important than the color ballance. Good color ballence is esential for some tasks, but most interior lighting is just way to dim. I'm a strong beliver in full spectrum lighting but it isn't everything. I light my appartment with number of full spectrum fluorescent lights and regular ones. Right now I have 4 tubes on. I can turn on as many as 12 at one time. They are all reflected off the ceiling and provide a very even light level all over my appartment.
Re:Works for me (Score:1)
I once tried an Ott light [ott-lite.com] (supposedly a full-spectrum flourescent). It's a great, *bright*, white light, and sure the contrast is amazing with it, but there's so much glare, I couldn't even read a book printed on white paper by it!
For computer use specifically, playing with monitor colour and temperature is a must. Jacking up the reds works wonders for my eyes, especially in blue flourescent light. Oddly enough, I noticed almost no reflection when I made this change at work; with the default blue monitor setting, the monitor was almost unusable in the default position.
That may not be a coincidence.... (Score:5, Informative)
Think it's just a coincidence?
Now toss in the fact that most monitor's (and all TVs) are "hot" - they're far more blue than they should be since it's a cheap way for the manufacturer to make them look "bright." (That's also why rooms with TVs look blue from outside.) Better monitors allow you to adjust the "color temperature", but most people don't know about this control or find a cooler temperature "dull."
This means that people who work in front of a screen are getting hit with excess blue, and the overhead fluorescent lights also have excess blue.
Still think it's just a coincidence?
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing OSHA mandates that overhead lights be full-spectrum and monitors be adjustable to the natural temperature (6500K?). It takes a few days to get used to it, but it's a lot more comfortable.
Re:That may not be a coincidence.... (Score:3, Informative)
Natural Sunlight on an average clear day is around 6500K. The industry standardized on 5000K based on some french research. It's been a while and I don't remember the details of the CIE study that produced the information. Mostly it was about the standard observer. Most of your calibrated light tables and viewing boxes are 5000K.
We switched over to 5000K flourescent tubes in our office a few years ago to make it easier to judge color proofs and the difference was amazing. These tubes have illuminants that provide 91% of the full spectrum. They're about $5/per tube, but they last longer than your standard el-cheapo brand.
If you are a light-sensitive person give these a try, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised and it may improve your mood, particularly during the winter.
YMMV and unfortunately I don't remember the exact details of the bulbs. I believe they are functionally equivalent to the other full-spectrum bulbs available but we purchased them through our graphic arts supplier so I know they could be gotten cheaper elsewhere.
I went back into programming and now all my illumination comes from halogen desk lamps.
Re:That may not be a coincidence.... (Score:1)
You may be correct about the monitors, but fluorescent lighting is heavy in the yellow, since that's the part of the spectrum we see best. As a check, you can expose some "daylight" film in fluorescent lighting and note the yellow cast. Or ask a lighting specialist for the spectrum.
Re:That may not be a coincidence.... (Score:2)
cheap way for the manufacturer to make them look "bright.
OK, that's true. But as one who doesn't normally use lighting other than what's on the monitor, I find anything less than 9300K to look horribly yellowed-out and sickly.
I, too, saw a pack GE Reveal bulbs on sale at my local hardware store. Unsure if compact fluorescents would fit in the fittings I had, I tried a pack of Reveals. Side-by-side with the regular incandescents, the difference is like night and day. For those of us that like high color temperatures (hey, for me, the light of the monitor is more "natural" than sunlight
Re:Works for me (Score:1)
Humm, watch out here. Are you understating that better lighting applications exists under Windows ?
I can hear the
Olivier
Great, but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Full Spectrum - the only way! :) (Score:3, Interesting)
I could not go back. I used to get headaches on a fairly regular basis that I just put down to tiredness/stress/whatever. They went away after about two weeks with the new lights.
I find I can work longer hours with no problems - except an annoyed wife!
I also find I can concentrate a lot better.
My cow-orkers have all noticed similar benefits - we were discussing it at our christmas function.
So, yeah, on the whole...get those bad boys!
Re:Ork you! (Score:1)
Borders Book Store (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Borders Book Store (Score:1, Interesting)
Choose your poison (Score:1, Offtopic)
So no more Barnes & Nobel. If I'm in the area I'll hit the Tattered Cover (which is a far better bookstore than either of the other two), but it's too inconvenient for routine use.
So do I choose the chain that sh*ts on its employees, or sh*ts on its customers? What a choice....
Re:Borders Book Store (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Borders Book Store (Score:1)
t.
Re:Borders Book Store (Score:1)
Re:Borders Book Store (Score:1)
Full spectrum worse than incandescent (Score:1, Troll)
The best lighting is indirect incandescent, or from things like candles and oil lamps (although that's too dim to read by). Indirect Halogen (OK, so Halogen is a kind of incandescent..) lighting is OK too. Fluorescent lighting is evil and must be stopped, but every office in the universe uses it for cost reasons.
I notice that there's a new and extra-bright kind of headlight in production with a slight bluish tint. That's pretty unpleasant too - I think they are metal halide based, but no-ones trying to light a room with them yet as far as I know.
Old yellow sodium lighting is disgusting too unless you go for that deserted carpark feel.
I was walking through Hyde park last night an noticing how nice gaslight is....
Re:Full spectrum worse than incandescent (Score:2)
According to this snippet [oreilly.com], Police have installed sodium lights to 'discourage' teens from cruising in certain areas. Apparantly it really makes the acne stand out.
car headlights... (Score:2)
- A.p.
Color Temperature and Bulb Quality Affect Light (Score:5, Interesting)
Color Temperature
Bulb Quality (you get whast you pay for)
Power and Ballast quality (Flicker)
For some other thoughts check this out [inlandreef.com]. It is about lighting fish tanks and not cubes but it is still applicable. I supplement my flouresents with an incandescent bulb for better quality of light. More information on lighting theory is available here [gamonline.com].
Try some of this [gamonline.com] if you want a different color.
Full spectrum lighting (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Full spectrum lighting (Score:2)
I'd recommend multiple bulbs of different spectrums or a full spectrum bulb. Vita lite makes florescent bulbs and you can get red, blue and green colors I believe as well as white. They also have full spectrum bulbs. At least this is what I know they make for the aquariums and there is no reason that you cannot use these bulbs in a home or office. The drawback is that they are florescent, which means that they flicker at about 60hz or the cycle of the power coming out of your sockets.
light mood (Score:1, Informative)
how light affects mood is Dr. Norman Rosenthal
(http://www.normanrosenthal.com)
full spectrum vs lumens (Score:1)
Full Spectrum or ? (Score:2, Informative)
Fleuroescent lights, by their nature, are mixtures of gases which approximate "real" light. Generally you could think of it as similar to theatre light; add the 3 colors and you get white.
However, FL gases are not a smooth dim-to-bright-to-dim spectrum type of light. There are always areas of the spectrum that are missing, and it is the careful (or haphazard) choice of gas that determines how close it can get to white light.
Incandescents are continuous spectrum, with typically blue missing (hence the yellow cast in photos). But, and this is a big but; they are continuous from the "first" color to the last color they can display. FL lights will have gaps (some of the colors of the rainbow are missing entirely).
Thus, FL "full spectrum" lights have more attention paid to haveing all colors represented, but to do it like sunlight, candlelight or incandescent light is pretty much impossible. There will still be areas of the visible spectrum with little or no output. That's why they cost more than "regular" FL's (some of the gases cost more) but they still may be unsatisfactory to sensitive individuals or for critical color matching.
Incandescent Full Spectrum are available; the drawback is cost and overall life. In other words, you probably won't see them in the IT department of MegaCorp. FL Full Spectrum are then still a compromise; it is possible for some individuals to get headaches from them (as they can from all FL lighting).
Having said all that, Full Spectrum are usually better than regular "el cheapo" FLs if that't the kind of light you're stuck with. Just as with regular FLs, brand and product differences exist, so some experimentation may be necessary.
What were you smoking? (Score:4, Informative)
Your theory of gas mixtures affecting color is also incorrect. Fluorescent lights are the product of an electrical discharge in a low pressure mercury vapor. Some trace gases are added to improve startup, but not color. Color is determined by the phosphor coating on the glass, in exactly the same manner color is determined in CRTs. Change phospors, change colors.
Observing the spectra of the different classes of fluorescent bulbs shows that Cool White (most typical) differs from Daylight by a reduction in the red (slight) and yellow (significant)and an increase in the green (slight) and blue (significant). Cool White has a yellow component peak that is approximately double the value of the peak that straddles blue and green. In the Daylight bulb, the peaks are relatively the same. The two of the four spikes (yellow, green, blue, and indigo) are also affected, with yellow reduced and indigo boosted.
Incandescent (tungsten filament) lamps are stronger radiators in red than blue, following a somewhat straight line that gives us a red luminace that is approximately 4 to 5 times greater than blue. Yellow comes in at about 3x blue.
Sunlight has a strong peak in the blue-green and decays to about half power in the red. Continuous, but not uniform. And it clearly demonstrates why Daylight bulbs boost the blue component (while still leaving at least 1.5X the "natural" yellow component).
(This clearly shows that six pictures and some graphs are worth a couple hundred words.)
Re:What were you smoking? (Score:2, Informative)
There are two broad classes of electric light sources available for interior lighting; incandescent light sources and discharge light sources. Incandescent light sources produce light by heating a filament, the spectrum of the light being determined by the temperature of the filament.
Discharge light sources produce light by passing an electric current through an ionized gas; the spectrum of the light being determined by the gas used, the gas pressure, the other elements in the discharge and the presence or absence of a phosphor coating. Full-spectrum fluorescent lamps are low pressure, mercury discharge lamps with a phosphor coating. The discharge in the mercury atmosphere produces mainly ultra-violet radiation. This ultra-violet radiation is largely absorbed by the phosphor coating lining the walls of the discharge tube and reradiated as light. Incandescent lamps have a continuous spectrum in the visible region, dominated by the long wavelengths (see Figure 1).
Discharge lamps typically have a spectrum consisting of strong single wavelengths amongst a continuous background
From:
Is Full-Spectrum Lighting Special?
Peter R. Boyce, Ph.D.
Lighting Research Center
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY 12180-3590 U.S.A.
Okay, I stand corrected. After all, when you look at graphs of FL lighting, there is a "continuous spectrum" of light, typically 100 times less bright than the spikes. So, technically, you're right. In layman's terms, I stand by my assertation that the light emitted is dominated by a few bands of color separated by nearly no light output in other colors.
The type of gas used can and does affect the light specrum. Phosphor coatings are not present on all types of FL tubes; it depends (again) on the desired lighing qualities, including spectrum.
100W Incandescent: less than 10 mw/nm at approx 450nm, rising steadily to 50mw/nm at 800nm.
65W FL: Less than 10mw/nm at: 300-400 nm but with a narrow spike of 35mw/nm at about 370nm; approx 25mw/nm at 400-500 nm but with narrow spikes of 75 and 200 at approx 410 and 430nm; medium width spike at approx 570nm of between 50 and 150 mw/mn.
90 W Low Pressure Sodium (isn't that a different gas?): virtually no output (no measurable output on the graph, could be some at 10mw/nm or less) except for a 3300mw/nm spike at about 590 nm.
400W Metal Halide Mercury: Spikes of 1000 mw/nm at approx 300, 350 and 400nm; spikes of 1500 mw/nm at approx 550 + 580; one spike at about 620nm of about 800mw/nm. Output at all other wavelengths less than 30mw/nm, some not showing on the graph at all (could be zero?).
Now, a graph is a funny thing to base your info on (easily fudged and "prettied up"); these are from a submitted paper. However, feel free to read the whole thing (and more) at:
http://www.nrc.ca/irc/fulltext/ir659/contents.h
The quoted paper is available PDF on that page, as are others.
Re:What were you smoking? (Score:1)
Your description of an incandescent is correct, matches mine, and has never been at issue. The only thing I disagreed with in your previous comment is the premise that continuous spectrum sources are better than fluorescent. Incandescent tungsten lighting doesn't match solar spectra any better than the worst fluorescent.
Your fluorescent description is approximately correct, but it's worth noting that we don't see wavelengths less than 370nm. Starting at 400nm, your description accounts for an 8X difference in intensity, not the 100X you claimed. Which of your answers is correct? The IES chart shows the base level as greater, and is the standard of the lighting industry. I'll stick with that data.
Low pressure sodium is _not fluorescent_ and would be encountered indoors only when hell freezes (or some such approximation of never). You've likely seen it as the orange lighting in a parking lot. Its companion, High Pressure Sodium lighting, appears amber and is also normally used outdoors. Occasionally, HPS lamps are used indoors with Metal Halide lamps to produce an economical and relatively color accurate light.
Metal halide is _not fluorescent_ and is commonly used in industrial settings indoors, and as the most accurate color source for outdoor area lighting.
Re:What were you smoking? (Score:1)
That statement is simply laughable. I hope you don't read by the light of the "worst fluorescent".
Re:What were you smoking? (Score:1)
I do read by the "worst" fluorescent and have no difficulty doing so. Black on white text is easily handled by a cool white bulb. If it weren't, we wouldn't be using them nearly universally in professional and commercial space. Or will you now point to some vast right wing conspiracy to deprive us of a proper environment?
With regard to my "laughable" statement, feel free to compare the spectra and show me up. Given the accuracy of your previous statements, I suppose I can safely let this thread die.
Or not. Read your own source and note what a full spectrum fluorescent adds that cool white and others lack. Blue. What else lacks blue? Your continuous spectrum darling, the tungsten incandescent.
Look at the roll off of the longer wavelengths in the solar spectrum and the cool white and contrast that with the nearly linear increase of the incandescent.
You discuss our attempts to create "real light", which I take to be sunlight. If that's the case, cool white beats tungsten incandescent.
I recommend them (Score:1)
Unfortunately I had to give the light back to my turtles.
Great for cubicle farms! (Score:1)
GE also sells Reveal [gereveal.com] incadescent bulbs that are cheaper than compact fluorescents and are great for reading lamps.
The next step is "tune-able" light bulbs Solux Lightbulbs [wiko.com]why should your stereo have an equalizer, but not your lightbulbs?
Public Service Flame..er..Announcement (Score:1)
Thank you for your attention.
Being somewhat of an expert on the subject (Score:2)
Effect shouldn't be that different on humans.