Bulbs And Lamp Shades

[Dave54]

I don't know if there is an answer to this as such, but here goes.
We have my wife's elderly mother living with us, and she is always complaining that the light in her room is too dim, even with a 100w incandescent fitted. She has a table light as well but still not enough.

Saw some 46 Watt "Soft Lite" spiral type energy saver bulbs and thought they might give an answer for the ceiling light.

However, light shades that would be suitable (from Argos at least) are rated at 60W incandescent, 12W energy saving. I'd always assumed that heat was the problem with bulbs in lamp shades, so surely a 46W energy saver is going to let out less heat than a 60W "ordinary" Why the difference?

Any ideas, including sources of suitable non industrial shades welcome.

I realise the 46W is going to be bright incidentally, (might be a bit of an understatement that!)but she loves a really bright light.

 

[tonyelectric]

Try halogen energy savers, these give a similar spectra to a standard incandecent bulb but with less energy and heat so will suit a 60W shade.

Philips make a range called HalogenA

Many makes poduce eco-classic halogen capsule in a bulb designs

Bell make a holder to take a g9 lamp and you then fit a bulb shaped glass

 

[ban-all-sheds]

However, light shades that would be suitable (from Argos at least) are rated at 60W incandescent, 12W energy saving. I'd always assumed that heat was the problem with bulbs in lamp shades, so surely a 46W energy saver is going to let out less heat than a 60W "ordinary" Why the difference?

You're right - IHNI why they say that.

Probably got someone hard-of-thinking to write the spec, and they looked up what the "equivalent" of a 60W incandescent was and they put that in, 'cos they don't have a ******* clue what any of it means.

[rant] 12W is the equivalent of 60W? Yeah, right. 5x? You'll be lucky... [/rant]

Be wary of those halogen GLS lamps - I tried them once and the beam pattern was awful - very non-uniform bright areas and shadows.

Any ideas, including sources of suitable non industrial shades welcome.

Can help you there.

Apparently a lot of people are now calling what you and I know as lampshades "non-electric lighting".

I kid you not. Google it.

I realise the 46W is going to be bright incidentally, (might be a bit of an understatement that!)but she loves a really bright light.

Get her one of these:

http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/I/U-shaped-CFL/a/9000000108878.htm

 

[tonyelectric]

Be wary of those halogen GLS lamps - I tried them once and the beam pattern was awful - very non-uniform bright areas and shadows.


Thats why I use frosted ones, Philips do an eco classic & halogenA in frosted and BELL do a frosted cap option, all my hose lights have the BELL ones now, lovely light, long life compared to old filament and not so heavy on the blue spectra as CFL

http://www.belllighting.co.uk/images/file/HalogenAdaptor_flyer_A4_B.pdf

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Must admit the ones I tried were clear. The normal GLS lamps I use in those lights are clear, because they're opaque glass wall lights/uplighters, and pearl lamps just lose too much.

 

[OwainDIYer]

I don't know if there is an answer to this as such, but here goes.
We have my wife's elderly mother living with us, and she is always complaining that the light in her room is too dim, even with a 100w incandescent fitted. She has a table light as well but still not enough.

Try this

 

[ericmark]

I am also looking for some good light for my photography. My son has a quartz halogen up lighter that works well but don't really want light reflected from ceiling. I have considered using a 70W metal halide which does have loads of light but don't know what colours it puts out and for what I want colour is important.
Discharge lights are moving forward and the 2D series of lights I think now come in 32W units as well as more common 28W.
However one does not want strong light all of the time and so putting high output units in the main lights is not really what most people want.
But as to shade sizes I can't understand any reason why the shade has a limit other than heat. Of course one can see why a tungsten bulb is limited to 60W but as to compact florescent lamps the only limitation is the physical size of the unit.
We use 5 eight watt globe discharge bulbs in each fitting and anything bigger will not fit in the available space and one would see the lamp poking out above the shade and that is about the only reason for not using larger lamps.
Oddly we have got use to the reduction in light from original 6 forty watt bulbs we went up to 6 eleven watt energy saving but after re-decorating this dropped to 10 eight watt bulbs. On switching on it seems dim but within a few minutes we can see well enough for most things. It is after all 80W and originally there would have been two 100W bulbs.
But when I get the camera out then I realise how low the lighting is. If I don't use flash then to get the speed to 1/30 second then I have to raise ISO to 1600 with the f3.5 lens that came with camera and so use the 28mm f2 fixed lens to reduce the grain. Colour is also a problem and I have to take in RAW and colour correct every image in Photoshop to produce a Jpeg of right colour.
Considering this I would think anyone who is colour blind would have problems with these new lamps. We have used sodium street lighting for years because the human eye can see better in orange light. And on the railways they use orange jackets instead of normal yellow in order to reflect the orange light used in marshalling yards.
With this in mind I wonder in your case if experimenting with more orange or more blue of a light may help? Dyslexic people also use overlay sheets to tint the lighting and this helps with reading so likely it can also help with other tasks.
Would be interesting to know if the colour of the light does make any difference? Florescent lamps are available in many colour temperatures and even with cheap compact florescent lamps I have noted there is a large range of colour temperature available.

 

[tonyelectric]

Best light for photography would be an Ianiro/Strand redhead 800W tungsten, about £30 on the second hand market or a Malham Cycliode with a 700W tube. for black and white perfect as is, for colour use an 80A or 80B blue filter to cancel the yellow element of the tungsten.

Or consider studio flash such as interfit (kit from £160 direct from Paterson) or Elinchrom.

 

[bernardgreen]

she is always complaining that the light in her room is too dim, even with a 100w incandescent fitted.

For some people with poor ( aged related ) eyesight a single bright light causes problems in that things appear to them as very dimly lit if the light is not shining directly on them. An aunt of mine could only read a book with the lamp above her head.

In simple terms the eye adjusts to the brightness of the light source and not to the book being read or the object being looked at.

The best option might be to have maybe four lights in the corners of the room rather than one single light so that most sides of most objects are in direct light rather than reflected light..

edit quote installed properly

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Remember these:

http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/product/2580/p1-1-photoflood-240v-275w-es/

 

[ELZ4742]

I don't know if there is an answer to this as such, but here goes.
We have my wife's elderly mother living with us, and she is always complaining that the light in her room is too dim, even with a 100w incandescent fitted. She has a table light as well but still not enough.

Saw some 46 Watt "Soft Lite" spiral type energy saver bulbs and thought they might give an answer for the ceiling light.

However, light shades that would be suitable (from Argos at least) are rated at 60W incandescent, 12W energy saving. I'd always assumed that heat was the problem with bulbs in lamp shades, so surely a 46W energy saver is going to let out less heat than a 60W "ordinary" Why the difference?

Any ideas, including sources of suitable non industrial shades welcome.

I realise the 46W is going to be bright incidentally, (might be a bit of an understatement that!)but she loves a really bright light.

i have this request on a daily basis, it seems the popular choice is the 'energy saving' gls halogen like these which go up to 105w

http://www.cromptonlamps.com/cat2.asp?cat1=16&cat2=92

 

[Dave54]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Much appreciated! I've had a look at all your suggestions. We don't really want to go down the route of anything too complicated in the way of extra lights etc. MIL has Alzheimer's, and we know she has the start of cataracts as well, which can't be helping her. She spends a lot of time looking at magazines and papers, and complains that it's "Too dim" in the room. She has a reading light as well, but a brightly lit room seems to help her in general. The 46W is a big bulb, but gives a very good, bright incandescent type light. What I think we need is a shade that will cover the sides of the bulb so that the area underneath is still bright. I'm inclined to agree that the 60W /12W thing with lampshades is a stuff of nonsense (not the way I'd usually put it, but as a newb here I'm being extra polite ) The 46W eco runs a lot cooler than a 60 W incandescent as far as I can tell.
I like the term "hard-of -thinking" I've Googled "Non electric lighting". Appears to be a way to tell the hard-of-thinking that lamp shades don't need to be wired up!
H'mm!

ericmark. you're right you need a lot of light for photography. Any sort of light will do with digital. To get the right white balance, use a grey card like this one
http://www.photo-software.com/grey-card/
or at a pinch a sheet of white paper. Either set a custom white balance in your camera, or take a shot of the grey card and use that as a reference for setting the the colour balance in Photoshop.
What you don't want is mixed light sources. ie light sources of mixed temperature. Fluo, incandescent and daylight just don't mix and give weirdly coloured shadows. Before I got studio flash I shot hundreds of "still life" type shots for microstock using two 500 W tungsten work lights on stands with home made soft boxes. http://www.studiolighting.net/foam-core-homemade-softbox/
Just don't leave 'em alone while they're switched on!
Flash is the best answer. Continuous light of any sort is not much use for living subjects. You'll never get a fast enough shutter to stop blur. Hope this helps.[/url]

 

[tonyelectric]

Remember these:

http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/product/2580/p1-1-photoflood-240v-275w-es/[/QUOTE]

They are fine but the fillament is somewhat fragile after it has been burned once, I think the total burn life is only 2-4 hours

 

[Dave54]

Remember these:

http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/product/2580/p1-1-photoflood-240v-275w-es/[/QUOTE]

They are fine but the fillament is somewhat fragile after it has been burned once, I think the total burn life is only 2-4 hours

Yeah high output from a (relatively) small bulb = short life.

The output is also a particular spectrum either for use with tungsten film or daylight film with the right filter. (as you said above)

Modern equivalent for digital is a high output compact fluo. Usually with modifier such as softbox etc. Less heat and lasts longer.

Colour balance with film was a nightmare. It's easy with digital.

ETA How did this thread go OT to photography?

 

[tonyelectric]

Yep colour balance is indeed a pain, i'm still stuck on film and my beat up but much loved Leica M2, I D&P my own too and colour printing filtration can be interesting too.

Personally I use two very old Mole-Richardson fresnels, have seen those fluorecent boxes though.