Best replacement for 60 W incandescent bulbs?

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Here's a comparison of the color temp appearance between the Philips 3000K LED vs Walmart's 5000K 100w CFL vs Alzo 5500K 100w CFL with a picture of the actual bulb and package.</p>

<p>The price of the Philips LED is quite cheap compared to even Philips and Crees and other brands most between $15-$40. The Philips was hidden away with about 4 left in a small box buried among all the other brands, even Philip's bigger, brighter and more expensive bulbs.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Something else I forgot to add about the Philips. It doesn't produce a lot of heat after being left on. It's still about 100 degrees to the touch but not as bad as others like the GE version.</p>

<p>In fact the Home Depot display bulb seen in this YouTube review (not sure if it was the exact brand/model since the bulb wasn't marked)...<br /> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cwV5WYIykY</p>

<p>...was so hot to the touch I had use a cloth to unscrew it from the display to try out the Philips.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Here's an exposure/AWB test between a Philips 60w incandescent (overhead stove bulb) vs the Philips 60w LED Bright White/3000K bulb. The images are not edited, only applied a dual illuminant DNG profile.</p>

<p>The exposures were manually set to produce an overall similar histogram (luminance based incamera display) and brightness appearance as seen in ACR to show exposure variances to get the same results. The lights show they deliver slightly different contrast characteristics due to the tungsten's broad dispersion and diffused light from its frosted globe shape vs the LED's directional cone shaped reflective base. In actuality the LED produces a much more brighter, neutral and punchier overall light characteristic.</p>

<p>The exposures respectively are: incandescent-1/50th, f/8, ISO 800...LED-1/100th, f/8, ISO 800 with both lights one foot from the hanging objects. </p><div></div>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Joe W: 1. We'll be putting in high hats in our family room, living room and bedrooms. With dimmer control. Probably each with the equivalent of 60 watts incandescent which is what we already have in our kitchen where we use Sylvania 60w A19 Duramax soft white. What would you recommend? We would like instant on with a warmer look.</p>

<p>2. Also, we're using Sylvania DoubleLife B10 chandelier bulbs, small base, 40w. They're wonderful because the filaments look candlelight especially when dimmed. They're not hidden behind anything-so you see the elements. What's available after these are no longer made? (Maybe we should stock a bunch)?</p>

<p>Thanks for you input. It's fascinating what you know about this stuff.</p>

[nico_morris]

<p>If you do find an energy-saving bulb you like, then don't assume by buying a different batch or wattage you will get the same colour either. I've seen a manufacturer's daylight bulbs vary in colour from the wattage when all that should change is the circuitry and not the phosphors. Of course, other manufacturers' ideas of the same colour are different as well. The reader may be better off sampling a type and then going back to the same place they got the sample for more if they like it.<br /> The toxicity of elemental mercury has been exaggerated here to support their arguments and conspiracy theories. They need not be frightened of bulbs on that basis. Lots of people have broken fluorescent bulbs and are still well. They even have mercury alloyed in their teeth which does not stay magically fixed in place either and they are still not dead yet. People panning for gold boil mercury off like they are stir-frying and what they get is chronic mercury poisoning over years, not some Sarin-like toxic shot. Organic methyl mercury is pre-eminently dangerous form of mercury.<br /> If the ultraviolet content in energy saving bulbs were really so high then they would contribute to rashes and cataracts and have been banned, and so this aspect also risks overstatement.<br /> Regarding the spectrum of bulbs, I don't see what is stopping people looking at the histograms of these lights with their own images.</p>

[Bill C]

<blockquote>

<p>[Nico] If the ultraviolet content in energy saving bulbs were really so high then they would contribute to rashes and cataracts and have been banned, and so this aspect also risks overstatement.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think the only issue mentioned was related to possible damage to color photos and artwork, which can happen at relatively low levels. Henry Wilhelm's 1993 book, <em>The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures</em>, has probably the best info you'll find. In particular, chapter 3 covers this sort of thing. One way the UV effect is studied is to run fading tests under fluorescent light comparing "bare bulb" versus UV-filtered tubes. If there is a difference, one presumes that UV had something to do with it.</p>

<p>Here's an excerpt from the book (p. 145):</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Since the early 1980s, however, Ektacolor, Fujicolor, Konica Color, Agfacolor, and most other modern color papers have been manufactured with a protective UV-absorbing emulsion overcoat on top of the image layers. Because of this built-in protection, almost all of the fading that occurs in these papers under normal display conditions - even when the prints are exposed directly to the UV-rich illumination of bare fluorescent lamps - is caused by visible light.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The book is available for free download from Wilhelm's web site: <a href="http://wilhelm-research.com/book_toc.html">http://wilhelm-research.com/book_toc.html</a></p>

[anthony_brookes5]

I have been buying energy saving bulbs from soon after they were launched and they have improved a lot. However none has ever lasted as well as the manufacturer says and they can get extremely hot in the mount.

Also a friend says that they are environmentally worse than incandescent bulbs due to the chemicals in the coating and the heavy base. About two years ago a 60w bulb bought by my father in law in 1948 gave up. Can anyone beat that ?

[_yvind_str_m]

<p>Hello<br>

Joseph have very insightful comments on the subject. One correction, though. Its correct that all CFLs are produced in China, but the patents of the technology is owned by western companies. Its just that they choose to produce them where its cheapest, and closest to the raw materials. For LFLs, they are assembled in the US.<br>

Let me provide some additional information about CFLs and LFLs.<br>

There are three important environmental issues with CFL/LFL, and one photographic issue.<br>

1. The photographic first - as stated by Joseph and others, the CFLs and LFLs does not show the full spectrum of colors. This creates dull, uncorrectable colors in indoor photography. WB corrections cannot fix it; only a really good CRI (as Joseph says) can remedy the situation.<br>

2. As others have stated, CFLs and LFLs contains mercury. Mercury is extremely bad for the environment and our bodies, and can cause a number of issues. The governments of all the countries that has banned the old bulbs, has made no effort in really informing the population about the health risk of the CFL, probably to not stir unneccessary resistance against CFLs. As a result most of the CFLs ends in the every day garbage, and ends in landfills, scattered, poisioning the environment. Some ends in the earth, water and air. Mercury are released from air with rain, and polutes rivers and lakes. Mercury is found in fish all over the world, due to excessive use. It is commonly used in gold mining, for the final separation stage. We do not need more mercury into our environment. Various legislations has been put in place, to place the financial burden of recycling on the producers/importers, but that helps nothing if ordinary people do not know (or ignore) to turn the CFLs and the LFLs for proper treatment.<br>

3. UV light is supposed to be blocked from being emitted, but surveys have shown that almost all examined lamps had imperfections, so UV light was not blocked totally.<br>

4. Rare Earth Elements (REE) is an essential component of CFLs and LFLs (and LEDs). <br>

Its the mixture of some 6 of these REE that decides the quality of light. The REE sounds rare, and several are rare and expensive. Yttrium is a key component in the mixture (62%, by some research). The supply of Yttrium is considered to be critical before 2016, together with terbium and europium, also used in the mix. China currently produce more than 90% of all REE. (But have only 38%) of the total reserve. They also place restrictions on export. So they are rare. Only recently has there been built commercial processing of the lamp powder remaining when mercury is removed. I am only aware of Solvay in France, who recently invested 15 mill Euros in two factories for this.<br>

REE mining is very energy intensive, and may pollutes air, land, surface water and ground water. <br>

One environmental aspect of REE mining is a large number of illegal artisenal mines in China, with an estimated production of an additional 20.000 ton over the appr. 140.000 tons currently produced.<br>

So, with limited facilities for recycling, most of the CFLs ending in landfills, or burned, together with an energy intensive, environmentally bad mining process, CFL may not be the green alternative the governments in the west hoped for….<br>

But, maybe the bad results people will get at home will boost the photography business again?<br>

happy shooting<br>

Kind regards<br>

Øyvind Strøm</p>

[lad_lueck]

<p>These are spectrums from a Gretag Macbeth i1 Spectrophotometer. The round graph on the right shows two spectrums. The thin black line is 'daylight', and the thicker red line is the bulb being measured. You can see color temp below that, and on the left, CRI. Ignore the illuminance, as I held the spectro varying distances from the light.</p>

<p>tungsten flood 150 watt:<br>

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3825/11880097835_d42a128e30_o.png" alt="" /></p>

<p>phillips 470 lumen 8w dimmable 2700k LED:<br>

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3695/11880380353_91aa8f397b_o.png" alt="" /></p>

<p>150w equiv CFL warmed up:<br>

<img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2848/11880097995_dca5d64f12_o.png" alt="" /></p>

<p>2D flat flourescent:<br>

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3687/11880947056_79fbd1220b_o.png" alt="" /> </p>

<p> </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>The photographic first - as stated by Joseph and others, the CFLs and LFLs does not show the full spectrum of colors. This creates dull, uncorrectable colors in indoor photography. WB corrections cannot fix it;</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'll admit all daylight balanced flotubes and CFL's I have experimented with distort perception of an image's color constancy mainly in the orange/yellow (skin tone) spectrum that require not only WB adjusts but HSL tweaks. It's doable but with quite a lot of work.</p>

<p>However, that Philips 3000K LED I just tried out required far less HSL/WB tweaks. Not that I'm recommending the LED for pro work but for the hobbyist who need a modeling light in order to manually tweak focus shooting macros I'ld certainly recommend giving that a try.</p>

<p>What do you make of the CC chart and Skittle bag color shot with the Philips LED? They're quite accurate looking and it was a much quicker edit getting there.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I have noticed that effect of dull, uncorrectable colors in the shadow areas around noses, eye sockets and jaw lines in some of my digicam photos taken in either fluorescent light or primarily fluorescent light with a bit of fill flash. It's more noticeable with some sensors than others. </p>

<p>With my Nikon D2H it's not quite as bad, but the skin colors overall are ghastly under fluorescent lighting, no matter what the white balance or color correction - due primarily to the excessive near IR sensitivity of that model.</p>

<p>With my Nikon V1 the skin colors overall are more satisfactory, even under mixed artificial light. But some poor quality fluorescent lights leave grayish, muddy shadows around faces, that appear as if someone had selectively used a brush set to 50% desaturation. It's an odd quirk, and can't be corrected without selectively painting in those areas. Usually I just convert those casual or candid snaps to monochrome and be done with it.</p>

[wayne_larmon]

<blockquote>

<p><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=1540525">Lad Lueck</a> , Jan 10, 2014; 10:06 p.m. These are spectrums from a Gretag Macbeth i1 Spectrophotometer...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I missed this the first time around. I want to be able to make these measurements (spectrum plot, CRI, etc.) What do I need to get to be able to do this? Hardware, software, etc. (I use 64 bit Windows 7.)</p>

<p>I know that XRite has various combinations of hardware and software. I don't need to profile anything (I already have an i1DP for my monitors and I don't own a printer.) I just want to measure light characteristics. And maybe spot colors. </p>

[digitaldog]

<p></p>

<blockquote>

<p>I want to be able to make these measurements (spectrum plot, CRI, etc.) What do I need to get to be able to do this? Hardware, software, etc. (I use 64 bit Windows 7.)<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>An EyeOne Pro Spectrophotometer and the supported software (old, but free) shown above (i1Share). <br>

As to CRI.....</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.alzovideo.com/cri.htm">http://www.alzovideo.com/cri.htm</a><br>

The CRI rating of light sources, is an old out-of-date standard developed by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE). It is a relative index which compares the relative color reproduction ability of one light source to another for a standardized FILM medium. The maximum value of 100 is given to tungsten light sources, therefore all other light sources including sunlight will have values less than 100. This was an important reference for <em>film</em>photography because tungsten balanced <em>film</em> rendered perfectly in tungsten light and color shifted for almost all other light sources that have lower CRI values.<br>

This outdated light valuing method is mostly irrelevant to digital photography because all digital cameras include compensation for color temperature and are more accurate at 5500-6000K than the 3200K color temperature of tungsten light. In reality tungsten light does not render very well as it has an abundance of red and infrared (heat) and is relatively weak in the blue part of the spectrum. In reality, light sources that are closer to 5500K (like the ALZO Cool Lites) will render color better in a digital camera than tungsten light.<br>

<strong>Conclusion</strong>: We include CRI ratings in our product descriptions because many customers request it as it is the only reference commonly used. But in terms of using CRI to determine the rendering ability of a light source CRI is useless. In reality we are anxiously waiting for the CIE to develop a better index that address the many light generation technologies present today that are far better than tungsten sources.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>CRI, is a bit of a kludge to make a light source appear to be closer to daylight for marketing and light manufacturers. CRI was developed in large part to aid in the sales of Fluorescent tubes. There are a set of BCRA tiles used to compare under a reference light source but only 14. That's too small a set of tiles. That make it easy to create a spectrum that will render the 14 tiles and doesn't tell us that the light source is full spectrum. It doesn't tell us how the other colors will render. My understanding is there are two reference sources; Tungsten for warm bulbs and D50 for cool ones (above/below 4000K). That means that a normal tungsten bulb and perfect daylight both have a CRI of 100! As such, a high CRI is a decent gauge of how well a light will preform in your home but not such a great indicator of how well it will work for photography and proofing. Both a Solux 48 and a "<em>full spectrum</em>" tube from home depot may have a CRI of 97. I can assure you the Home Depot bulb has a giant mercury spike and some spectral dead spots.<br>

</p>