Daylight lamps?

I work from home and my computer setup is in a sort of alcove. Gets quite dull unless it's a very sunny day, meaning I have to turn the lights on. Not a major issue. However I'm thinking about trying a daylight lamp instead, to mimic daylight as oppose to being under artificial light.

Does anyone have one? Is there a notable difference?

If it's just to illuminate the keyboard and desk surface, use a desk light.

diy_fun_uk said:

I work from home and my computer setup is in a sort of alcove. Gets quite dull unless it's a very sunny day, meaning I have to turn the lights on. Not a major issue. However I'm thinking about trying a daylight lamp instead, to mimic daylight as oppose to being under artificial light.

Does anyone have one? Is there a notable difference?

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There is more blue in a daylight lamp, more red/yellow in tungsten lamps and LED for normally chosen for the home. Daylight lamp lighting, is better where it is intended to supplement natural daylight, but might seem a bit harsh after sunset. We have the colour everywhere, apart from the kitchen, where daylight lighting seems to work best for us.

Yes, the colour difference is very noticeable, especially with the two colours close to each other.

Take your pick

https://www.saa.co.uk/product-search/?query=lamp ( SAA + society for all artists )

or

https://try.seriousreaders.com/pages/GGR110/ ( Really serious lamps )

bernardgreen said:

https://try.seriousreaders.com/pages/GGR110/ ( Really serious lamps )

Click to expand...

..and stupidly expensive too. Are they halogen or LED? The difference between those and any other lamp with a suitable lamp bulb is....?

I use an LED panel in my (white) kitchen and it's very bright which I like.
I used daylight because the window is at one end and the artificial light mixes well.

an office of mine had a system where as the outside light reduced, artificial daylight faded up so you had a constant level

I changed all my garage lights for LED Daylight panels as well, over time.

Tigercubrider said:

I use an LED panel in my (white) kitchen and it's very bright which I like.
I used daylight because the window is at one end and the artificial light mixes well.

an office of mine had a system where as the outside light reduced, artificial daylight faded up so you had a constant level

I changed all my garage lights for LED Daylight panels as well, over time.

Click to expand...

We have those type of lights in college. Not realising what they were, when I first started, I used to call the contractors over and tell them we had a problem with such and such a room. After about 3 or 4 different calls one of them explained them to me. When you first turn them on they go to full brightness and then fade to the required level.

Get a Phillips Hue or similar smart bulb.

You can set it to daylight during the day and later (if you work late) or cold day to a warmer white.

Thanks for the advice all

If you want to simulate daylight you would want lamps with a high "CRI".
They used to be horrendously expensive but less so now. https://www.lighting.philips.co.uk/consumer/led-lights/quality-of-light-led-lighting

Colour Temperature in Kelvin isn't the whole story. That's an estimation of a "black body radiator" like the Sun or a bit of wire, which would give the same starting spectrum.

Wire, sun etc starts off like

that but then the atmosphere etc gets in the way, and you get




Hotter is bluer. Yes it seems backwards - surely red should be hotter than blue...
"Daylight" lamps might be 6000K or 5500K and Warm White down around 3700K, which approximates evening light.






But if you look at normal LEDs you find:



That blue spike can be huge. It's there because it isn't possible to make a blue LED in the same way you make red, yellow and green because there isn't a semiconductor with the right "band gap" = a step in electron energy levels. Early blues used a difficult Gallium Nitride crystal but they still didn't combine with red and green to make a decent white.
So what they do now is is use YAG, which is a complex compound of Yttrium, Aluminium Gallium and I think Cerium. Fluorophores which are stimulated by the bluend, emit colours over a range of lower frequencies (warmer colours) which fill in the gaps between the peaks in the spectrum, to some extent.

If you're doing filming or video it's important. You can imagine what the strong peaks in the lamps above makes a face look like. Photo lights are usually better than CRI 90.




and if you pay enough: CRI >98 :



"Fluorescent lights" have horrible spikes all the way through the spectrum.

For comfortable lighting, high CRI is good.
To keep you from sleeping, nasty cheap high-Kelvin LEDs work because of the bright blue spike. (Bomber crew used to use red light - to preserve their night vision.)

You can't get daylight (high K) filament bulbs because you'd have to run them too hot. The old Photofloods didn't last more than a few hours, even though they were only 3200K.
Tungsten melts at about 3700K.

Tungsten-quartz halogen can run a little hotter than plain tungsten in vacuum but the reason is a bit technical - look up tungsten halogen cycle and purpose of thorium, if interested.

You might now be able to work out - indirectly - why CO2 in the atmosphere is a bad thing for global warming....