# just tried "Daylight" fluorescent bulbs - awesome!



## wquiles (Dec 25, 2005)

Man, I simply can't beleive how much nicer these are to the "standard" fluorescent bulbs I was using before. I put these in my office and I even had to go get my wife and show her how awesome and true-to-life these (Color Temperature - 5500K) bulbs really are 

Everything else in my house uses the old "normal" ones and they look so yellow it is now anoying to use. If it were not for the money in exchanging all of them, I would swap them all today !!!

Anyone else using these "Daylight" fluorescent bulbs?

Will


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## Bob_G (Dec 25, 2005)

I've been using one for years on the floor behind the tv for backlighting. IIRC from an article I read years ago when I was into video reproduction as a hobby, most store bought ones aren't "spectrum controlled" or something like that. In other words, the entire spectrum of light isn't daylight balanced, just a small part. There's a specialty brand which is, and is used in many high-end video room setups I believe.


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## KevinL (Dec 25, 2005)

Try the Osram 23W Dulux daylight flourescents in screw base. I'm busy migrating everything that uses a screw base to these because of their instant-strike ballast - well, instant as in there is a barely perceptible 200 millisecond delay after you hit the switch before the 1330 lumens blow you away. This beats the STUFFING out of every other flourescent I've worked with, which flickers and flickers and takes forever to strike. Plus, at $4 a pop, they're cheap, affordable, and last forever (2000+ hours with 1-year guarantee against premature failure, guarantee card is in the box, free replacement!)

Plus, they are so white, they satisfy the most discriminating of users - machine vision, not human. My Canon 350D's automatic white balance interprets the flourescent as "true white", same as my LEDs. I use the 23W bulbs for short range illumination and extreme macro closeups (0.7X life size magnification with EF25 extender). $8 for the lamp and $4 for the bulb is much cheaper than the dedicated Macro Ring Light (multi-hundred $).


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## Zigzago (Dec 25, 2005)

KevinL said:


> I use the 23W bulbs for short range illumination and extreme macro closeups (0.7X life size magnification with EF25 extender). $8 for the lamp and $4 for the bulb is much cheaper than the dedicated Macro Ring Light (multi-hundred $).



KevinL:
Where do you buy these (lamp and bulbs)? What kind of lamp is it?

I'm looking for a cheap photo light setup.

Thanks


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## KevinL (Dec 25, 2005)

Dunno if you guys have Ikea furniture shops in your area, but they have great deals on desk lamps. I just buy anything that I like, that's cheap, that's metal, and has a screw base for the Osram bulbs. The Osram bulbs come from local hardware stores that don't do mail order. 

I know this isn't much help and I apologize, but I bought all the equipment locally because I happened to stumble across it quite by chance. 

If you need pictures of the lamp let me know and I can take some for you.


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## ddaadd (Dec 25, 2005)

Absolutly, I found the daylight flourecents about a year ago and have just recently got my rec room (garage) converted over, 18 of the 48". Most of them positioned to bathe a vehicle in a blanket of daylight for detailing and polishing.


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## wquiles (Dec 25, 2005)

Thanks Kevin - I will look for these Osram bulbs 

Will


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## Zelandeth (Dec 25, 2005)

Here's something else you might want to look into. As I recall from the datasheet (which I can't actually lay my hands on at the moment - it's on Osram's site though) these are also available in daylight (5000K). 1500Lm, 23W....and with a low output mode of 350Lm and 9W. 

 Osram Dulux EL Vario 23W

The one drawback I've noted with higher colour temperature lighting however, is that you really need to have a LOT of lighting. If there's a lot of light of a high CCT it looks great...but if you've got lower lighting levels I find it just looks wrong, often almost greyish. Which is why the other couple of daylight CFLs I have see little use beyond occasional lighting of things which are being photographed (I normally light the photographic area with a 35W Philips CDM ColourMaster metal halide lamp). At 9 and 15W they just aren't bright enough to light a room properly (this room always seems dark! - so needs a lot of light!).


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## picard (Dec 26, 2005)

Where do you guys buy those fluorescent bulbs anyway? Are they cheap or really expensive?


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## Trashman (Dec 26, 2005)

I bought a 150w (equivalent) 3-level Daylight flourescent bulb, but I didn't really like it all that much. I prefer warmer light for the home. It ended up in my girlfriend's living room. She recently got a new house mate to live in the adjacent room, and the house mate brought along her halogen torchier lamp. We told her that the halogen was a major fire hazzard and that we didn't think she should use it and we offered her the living room torchier (w/ the daylight flourescent). I told my girlfriend to tell the new house mate that she could always purchase a warm flourescent to replace the daylight bulb, but it turned out she actually prefered the daylight bulb! 

I bought the daylight flourescent bulb from The Home Depot.


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## CLHC (Dec 26, 2005)

Guess I'll have to try these out then. The Home Depot has them eh?


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## Trashman (Dec 26, 2005)

I should have mentioned that they appear slightly bluish to me.


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## cy (Dec 26, 2005)

just purchased a desk lamp at Sam's for $20, that has daylight balanced bulbs. 

beautiful balanced light!


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## pr5owner (Dec 27, 2005)

well when i moved out the first thing i did was scrap ALL incans in my house and replaced them with either LED bulbs or Phillips Daylight CFLs, there are no incans to speak of at my place anymore


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## dudeldam (Jan 13, 2006)

Dear all,

just in front of me I have a specvtrometer made from paper as a kit for children, resolution is 5nm.

I´m telling you that because with this 6.80 euro tool, you can easily examine the spectra of lamps. It is available at www.astromedia.de and called "Handspektrometer".

Fluorescents are usually sold with a number like 645, 750, 837 or 965... at least in europe.

The first number tells you about the colour quality, the 2nd & 3rd about colour temp, so a "970" bulb makes a spectrum which is nearly complete, with only a few "dark lines", and makes nearly 7000K, so it is "blueish"; a "645" makes only a few discrete lines (for example violet, turkoise, green, orange and red), and is yellowish.

The best lamps in terms of colour quality are 9xx bulbs. Some special ones are not only having a gapless spectrum, but also a close-to-daylight intensity spectrum. They are called "lumilux de luxe daylight", "truelight", "biolight" or "biolux". I have them in use everywhere where I could win the everlasting discussion with my wife, who does not like fluorescents at all no matter how good they are.

For Osram products, there is a comparative spread sheet which tells you about output, bulb shape & size, colour qality, colour temperature a.s.o. in german, but easily understandable:
http://www.osram.de/pdf/service_corner/farb_lumenkarte.pdf

"Farbtemperatur" means colour temp, "Farbwiedergabe" means colour rendering quality (100=sun). "entspricht GE" means "equivalent General Electric product, "entspricht phillips" means equivalent phillips product a.s.o.
so maybe this sheet is usable for U.S. inhabitants as well. 

Don´t buy full spectrum lamps from esotherical money makers which also sell wonder medicine and other stuff for bored housewives with too-good-earning husbands. Buy full spectrum lamps from the sortiment of a quality brand. It is hard to figure out, but they ARE available without the money for the internet woodoo priests who unfortunately like to sell them as "depression medicine".

Regards 

Dudeldam


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## turbodog (Jan 13, 2006)

pr5owner said:


> well when i moved out the first thing i did was scrap ALL incans in my house and replaced them with either LED bulbs or Phillips Daylight CFLs, there are no incans to speak of at my place anymore



Check the fridge.


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## turbodog (Jan 13, 2006)

I found some nice 4100k CF bulbs. They're used everywhere, even the 4' fixtures.

But I saved some 6500k for my office.


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## silver_pioneer (Jan 15, 2006)

I got two 48" daylights on my 55 gal aquarium.I like having the bluer color light on the 55gal.


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## pedalinbob (Jan 16, 2006)

I want to try some GE "Sunshine" bulbs in my kitchen. They are 5000k and CRI 90. 
There are currently "Kitchen and Bath"bulbs, which are 3000k and CRI 70. I find the color to be odd.

They also have a "Daylight" model, which is 6500k CRI 75.
The "Residential" tubes are 4100k and CRI 72.

Should be an interesting experiment!

Bob


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## Ikonomi (Jan 25, 2006)

Hey KevinL, thanks for the tip about the Osram Dulux bulbs.  Any chance you could take a pic so I know exactly what to look for? I'm going to try to find some.


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## Vbeez (Feb 4, 2006)

I use daylight flourescent bulb in my house, panasonic quicklight, osram dulux, leuchtech lux pro, don't remember the rest. The only incan I have are in flashlights & cars


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## Omega Man (Feb 4, 2006)

I've been to Target, Walmart, and True Value, and still have not seen any sort of bulbs with the word "Daylight" on them. Just Edison's Reveal, and the gamut of regular bulbs.
Where is everyone finding LED and Daylight bulbs?


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## Spudman (Feb 4, 2006)

My wife is into sewing and just bought a tasklight called the Ott-lite. It uses daylight flourescent bulbs and is pretty neat. Unfortunately, the Ott bulbs are not screw in type, so you have to use their lamps. Here is the site where she bought hers and they were having a half price sale on the lamps and bulbs.

http://www.joanns.com/

These lights are still pricey and I'd like to find the screw in Osrams somewhere close or online.

EDIT: I just noticed they do sell a screw in replacement 20W bulb, but it is 25 bucks at half off. This isn't a deal, is it?


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 4, 2006)

Does that task light have an electronic ballast or a magnetic one? Electronically-ballasted lamps light up almost instantly, while magnetic ballast lamps go flicker-flicker-flickety-flickety-ON over a time period of about 3-5 seconds.


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## Spudman (Feb 4, 2006)

I just checked and hers is the flickety flicker flick type. It folds up when not in use and to turn it on you just open it. By the time it is all the way open it has finished with the flicker.


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 4, 2006)

Spudman said:


> I just checked and hers is the flickety flicker flick type. It folds up when not in use and to turn it on you just open it. By the time it is all the way open it has finished with the flicker.



Thanks for checking, Spudman! I've been on a quest for an electronically-ballasted desk lamp for awhile. I've used the older magnetic ballast lamps and they're harder on my eyes than the newer ones; I'm sensitive to the 60hz strobing.

One of the things that I like about the screw-in CFL lamps is that they all have electronic ballasts these days.


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## Paul_in_Maryland (Feb 6, 2006)

I installed some 48-inch daylight fluorescent tubes in our kitchen, and I love it. It makes every day feel like sunshine.

But I've had no luck installing daylight incandescents in our basement track lights. My wife and kids prefer the old-style yellowish lights.

I really wanted the daylight lights everywhere, because my indoor available-light photos (using film) would look more natural.


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## chevrofreak (Feb 9, 2006)

I bought one of those 25w Lights of America sunlight bulbs for $4.84 at Walmart, the color is really quite blue. I think I'd prefer 4100K-5000K temp. Also, it burned out after less than a day of use :ironic:


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## Omega Man (Feb 9, 2006)

chevrofreak said:


> I bought one of those 25w Lights of America sunlight bulbs for $4.84 at Walmart, the color is really quite blue. I think I'd prefer 4100K-5000K temp. Also, it burned out after less than a day of use :ironic:


Ha, JUST got a 2pack of the 75w/uses 20w ones this morning. Fired it up in my blacked out living room, and it looked very white to me. Nothing like sunlight, more like the white Q3's beam. I'll give it a few days and see how I like them.

EDIT: Well I returned them today, the color was really awful, like a blue-whitish office lighting. Very stark and harsh. Hopefully a trip to Home Depot will turn up some of the daylight and sunlight bulbs everyone else seems to be finding.:shrug:


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## The_LED_Museum (Feb 9, 2006)

chevrofreak said:


> ...Also, it burned out after less than a day of use :ironic:


LOA brand compact fluorescent light blubs are known to have an unusually high failure rate...this failure does not surprise me a bit.


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## chevrofreak (Feb 10, 2006)

The_LED_Museum said:


> LOA brand compact fluorescent light blubs are known to have an unusually high failure rate...this failure does not surprise me a bit.


 
Yeah I wasnt terribly surprised when it burnt out based on what I've read here.

BTW I sent a request to Costco for some cool white or daylight fluorescent bulbs. They sell the Feit brand 100w replacements in a 4 pack for about $9, and 8 packs of the 60w replacement for $12. Feit makes the cooler colors, so I hope Costco looks into it!

I've got about 2 dozen Feit bulbs in my house and out at my dads farm, they're flawless so far except the low color temperature.


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## wquiles (Feb 10, 2006)

I keep swaping more and more bulbs to these fluorecent ones, and I like it even more!. In my Master Bedroom, with the old bulbs I had some trouble to distinguish between my dark blue socks and my black socks, but once I changed the bulbs to the Daylight ones, it is VERY easy to pick them apart now :bow:

In the kitchen, now things look very natural as well. It is weird that I did not noticed earlier how bad and how yellow things where. I only regret that it took this many years for me to realize how much nicer these Daylight fluorecent bulbs really are 

By the way, I get mine from Home Depot 

Will


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## snakebite (Feb 13, 2006)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Thanks for checking, Spudman! I've been on a quest for an electronically-ballasted desk lamp for awhile. I've used the older magnetic ballast lamps and they're harder on my eyes than the newer ones; I'm sensitive to the 60hz strobing.
> 
> One of the things that I like about the screw-in CFL lamps is that they all have electronic ballasts these days.


look at oddlots/biglots.
the biglots furniture stores here closed and when they hit 90% off i got a sunlite full spectrum desklamp for $3
its electronicly ballasted and has a quad tube cfl that is 5000k and 90cri.
starts in about a second and warms up fully in about 30.


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## Ikonomi (Feb 19, 2006)

I'm having a hard time finding a good selection of fluorescent bulbs. Any advice on where to look besides the local Home Depot? I'd like a different brand of CFLs besides their Commercial Electric, which seem to take forever to warm up.

I've also scored an old, two-tube fluorescent lamp from work, and I'd like to get some "daylight" or "sunshine" 18" straight tubes for it. Or is there something better (full spectrum?) than the normal "daylight" temperature bulbs?


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## dudeldam (Feb 28, 2006)

Ikonomi said:


> [...] Or is there something better (full spectrum?) than the normal "daylight" temperature bulbs?


 
Yes there is. Daylight only means that the colour temperature is about 6500 Kelvin. What you need is a high colour rendering index (Ra), 100 being the theoretical maximum. Full spectrum fluorescents have an Ra of about 97 to 98. The "best quality" Osram lumilux de luxe fluorescents (starting with the number 9 on the product label) have an Ra of above90, the normal Lumilux (starting with the number 8) have Ra between 80 and 90, a.s.o., and this goes down to the crappy 6xx- fluorescents with an Ra of only 60 or less.

In every quality group you have the additional choise of different white tones (colour temperatures). 827 for example translates to Ra about 80, colour temp about 2700 K. 650 is awful rendering, and 5000K, 940 is nearly perfect rendering at 4000K, and so on. The product numbers of non-Osram bulbs are almost simular in their coding.


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## Omega Man (Feb 28, 2006)

Ikonomi said:


> I'm having a hard time finding a good selection of fluorescent bulbs. Any advice on where to look besides the local Home Depot? I'd like a different brand of CFLs besides their Commercial Electric, which seem to take forever to warm up.


Went to Target today, they still have thier GE brand CFL bulbs on clearance for $4.88 a 2pack. 60w=20w power.


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## yuandrew (Mar 1, 2006)

I have a pair of 2' 20watt GE Sunshines on the ceiling in my room. Lights the whole place up pretty well for the amount of energy used. I've switched the magenetic ballast in the fixture though with electronic ballast circuit boards from some old compact flourescent bulbs to run them.

A higher color temperature (such as daylight flourescent lamps) seems a little "bluish gray" or "cold" in a home setting unless you have enough of them that your room is "classroom bright"

My Lowe's hardware store just started selling Ott-Lite desk lamps and replacement bulbs for them. I bought a Vision Saver+ 13 watt PL tube and found the ballast my mom thought she threw away to run it in a regular table lamp that I used for reading. I prefer the white light over the "pinkish" CFL I had. The only drawback is the magnetic ballast (the light flashes a few times when turned on). The 18 watt and above Ott Lites I think have electronic ballasts.


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## chevrofreak (Mar 4, 2006)

I got a 3 pack of 23w 1200 lumen 5500K fluorescent bulbs from Home Depot for $12~ and they seem really nice. They worked great for the photos I took earlier (my reason for buying them, photography) but they still seem a bit bluish for my taste. Maybe I'll get some 4100K's or even some of the 3500K's next.


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## Dragon (Apr 18, 2006)

I had earlier seen flourescent tubes that were slimmer and brighter than the regular tubes, but unfortunately I didn't save the site because I was not looking at lighting, then. I'm interested in finding out if they the Asram daylights would work as replacement for the old tubs with magnetic ballasts (I'm suggesting electronic ballasts). I assume there may have to be some changes made in the fixtures and so forth? How would the ballast work? Does it come with the tubes, are would it be installed with new fixtures? Could the old fixtures be adapted to the new tubes?


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## Dragon (Apr 26, 2006)

Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.


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## brickbat (Apr 26, 2006)

Some people prefer to replace their old tub with a Jacuzzi whirlpool. Nevertheless, there are a few that really like those Asram daylights. As is often stated here, try 'em both! Some people might even like an Asram in their Jacuzzi...


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## Davis (Jul 20, 2011)

Verilux Natural Spectrum 27 Watt are excellent lights to read by as the contrast is much sharper. IMO the incandescent 150 watt equivalent looks “dingier”.


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## espresso (Mar 21, 2012)

I bought these 6500K Philips bulbs for my room and I'm not satisfied with colour at all. The room's size is 12 m² and I put 3x32W Philips Tornado daylight. They put out a lot of light but it's just so harsh and colour rendering is a disaster (they are 865 type which sould be enough). 
Skin tones are pale and everything that has an orange tint like furniture just doesn't seem nice. So I decided to replace one of the 6500K bulbs with Osram's 2500K and it was a bingo. Though i's not as good as I would like it, still much better than without it. 

I'm really disappointed with with 6500K from Philips and I expected more. I have 4x23W 2700K Philips Tornado in another room and they look amazingly good. I guess I will be sticking to lower colour temperatures in rooms where I spend more time.


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## Rina (Oct 15, 2015)

Hi, practicing posting since I am new here. 
I love fluorescent bulbs, bought those Verilux Natural Spectrum 27 Watt here link removed, 
but not sure if they still have them?


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