New painting lamp

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absolutrudy

New member
I was wondering if anyone could get me a link for a really good lamp, one that doesn\'t have alot of heat radiating from it, a good light to see all the colors vividly, and anything else about it that might be good for painting. Thanks???
 
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Jericho

Consummate Brushlicker
I like fluorescent lights that use Daylight bulbs... they don\'t tint the light green/blue/orange or anything like different kinds of lamps can. I\'m pretty sure you can get Daylight bulbs for many types of lamps, I highly recommend them.

Halogen lamps are insanely bright and get hotter than the surface of the sun. I\'ve lost fingerprints to halogen lamps before... touching the wrong part is extremely painful as you might have guessed.

And as a nice side effect to fluorescent ones they can reduce depression in winter time, when the outdoor light isn\'t usually full spectrum anymore. That messes with your head and the lamp can make it better somehow.
 
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vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by JerichoHalogen lamps are insanely bright and get hotter than the surface of the sun. I\'ve lost fingerprints to halogen lamps before... touching the wrong part is extremely painful as you might have guessed.
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Plus it could cause the lamp to explode. The oils on your skin will stay on the glass and create a head differential in the glass over time, resulting in a shower of glass.
 
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supervike

Super Moderator
Lava Lamp.


lol

no seriously, I have an OTT lamp, and they do all the things you say (no heat, good vivid colors). My only complaint with it is that it is not overly bright. I have a tall floor stand model, and I usually work directly underneath it. Plus they are very expensive.
 
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EricJ

Active member
I have regular desk arm lamps for my desk, and you can get full spectrum bulbs for them, which screw into the normal bulb socket, and have pure white light, low heat, etc...but unlike supervikes, you can have it in a lamp RIGHT next to the mini so you don\'t suffer from low light issues.
 
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Ratcals

New member
Originally posted by Einion
OTT Lites.

Einion
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Ditto that. My wife is an avid quilter and she has the floor lamp model and she loves it. I recently bought a table sized one that came with a magnifying glass. It is also great for photographing minis, no glare and no color shift.
 
mickc22

mickc22

Granddad!
Originally posted by Medved
www.actulite.com

this lamp has helped endlessly through the winter and dull days. it is just awesome.
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I\'ll second that, brilliant light. Only available from their website as their main business is internal lighting.

@Einion: you\'re probably right about the voltage tho
 
No Such Agency

No Such Agency

New member
Originally posted by vincegamer
Plus it could cause the [halogen]lamp to explode. The oils on your skin will stay on the glass and create a head differential in the glass over time, resulting in a shower of glass.
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That will only happen if you touch the actual bulb. But even a glass filter over the bulb will get insanely hot :eek:

I use a very ghetto lighting setup: a halogen desk lamp right over the table, incandescent bulbs overhead and a fluorescent fixture nearby as well. Should give me a reasonably full spectrum, dontcha think? :D My photos actually need very little white-balancing with this arrangement.
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Well I think it\'s a good idea to have some kind of more ambient lighting in the room to cover for the to excessive shadows created by a desktop lamp. As I live in Northern of Sweden I can\'t depend on daylight for that purpose (and it is not a good thing to rely on something that varies so much)

What you should put your focus on when buying a light is how well it renders color, the light temperature, (measured in kelvin) the Watts and finaly the Lumens (measures the intensity of light). Ordinary incandescence lightbulbs does not render colour as good as flourecent lighting, and the bluetinted \"daylight\" bulbs only contains a blue filter that makes the light colder.

So, on the ordinary fluorescent lights (here in Sweden anyway) it is a 3 digit number. Typically 830 or 940 or something similar. The first digit stands for how well it renders colour ie. how full the spectrum of light is. 90 is a very high CRI value (Most full spectrum lights) and that is what the 9 stands for. The other two digits stand for the kelvin temperature. (approx. 3000 or 4000 in these cases)

These are some guides i found to light temperature:

Warm White 3,000K to 3,500K
Cool White 4,100K to 4,200K
Full Spectrum 4,800K to 5,500K
Daylight 6,000K to 7,000K

but I also read that the definition of a full spectrum light is \"any lamp that had a color-rendering index above 90, a correlated color temperature (CCT) between 5500oK and 6800oK, and a spectral power distribution (SPD) for visible and UV light similar to that of open-sky natural daylight\"

The colder light the less lumens you get per watt, so if you invest in a full spectrum light you might need more Watts. In other words your ordinary desktop lamp might not give enough light for your purposes.

Right now I\'m using a 11W 940 ordinary desktoplamp (the highest I got hold of here in Umeå) I\'m not satisfied however and I have written to santa clause for a light armature that is fitted with a 960 fluorescent light. I will use my desktop lamp if necessary as a flexible way of getting light where I want it. I will probably also try to get the surface where I paint a touch lighter to work as a reflector for the light.

I hope I got all the information correct as I wrote most of it from the top of my head.

And remember that Full spectrum light keeps you sharp and focused as well! :)
 
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RobinS

New member
I just got me an actulite if they do em for US voltages I would recommend them.

Hey Einion , hows trix matey


Robin
 
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