Flourescent lighting == The Suck.

[sizemore]

I picked up a flourscent light tonight for lighting the layout and damn do I get that electric blue feeling. I picked up bulbs that are supposed to mimic sunlight.

Are there any other bulbs for flourscent that mimic more natural (incandescent) type lighting? Or am I stuck with "The Suck"

[wm3798]

I've got a simple 24" strip light over the paper mill with a basic $6 tube in it.  Nothing fancy.  It has a soft warm glow to it... Although that might actually be Brian after fighting a fire at Calvert Cliffs... ;D

You know, now that I think of it, I don't think he's ever actually walked all the way into the room...

Lee

[sizemore]

I've got a simple 24" strip light over the paper mill with a basic $6 tube in it.  Nothing fancy.  It has a soft warm glow to it... Although that might actually be Brian after fighting a fire at Calvert Cliffs... ;D

You know, now that I think of it, I don't think he's ever actually walked all the way into the room...

Lee

I think you have a point (about Brian)  ;D

And I did some homework. Looks like I need a bulb with a CCT (Color Temp) of 3000, not 5000 like I have now. So it's off to the Lowes tonight.

[GaryHinshaw]

Tim:

Color temp is definitely one thing to look for, but "cri" = color rendering index is another: look for cri>~85.  This measures how "spiky" the color spectrum is compared to an incandescent (which has cri=100, by definition).   A low cri bulb will have gaps in the emitted spectrum which might just correspond to the color of your favorite loco...

When I was putting lights in the basement for the new layout, I tried a range from ~3000 to 6000, and I definitely liked 5000 the best, but this is a very subjective thing.  I thought they made the colors really "pop".  When I finally get an ops session going here, the lighting will probably give everyone else a headache.   :

-Gary

[sizemore]

I settled for a 3000 CCT 3500 Lumens, with a CRI of 70 which to me feels like an incandescent. Since the layout isnt permanent, this bulb is strictly for illumination. If I take photo's I have the "daylight" bulbs as a backup.

T

[oakcreekco]

Sylvania "Designer" Cool Whites is what I've been happy with. Everything looks natural with no "tones" or "overtones".

Can't remember if I got them at Lowe's or Home Depot, but they made things on my shelf layout look "right".

Wow, I tried some others and thought that my eyes were really going bad.

Huge difference IMO

[cv_acr]

"Cool" white tends to be bluish.
"daylight" bulbs, which we use at the club, give a pretty natural feel, and you can get warmer lights with more of a yellow tint to them as well.

[Mark5]

I have state of the art Flourescent with "Daylight" bulbs. While a huge improvement over old skool tubes, they still kinda suck. After I get the layout more "underway" I'll probably re-visit. For now at least I can see everything clearly. ;D

[tom mann]

The lights I use for photography are very expensive bulbs rated at 5000K:  the color temp at noon.  The cheap bulbs at home depot or target claim 5000K, but have a bluish tinge.  The ones that are rated 3000K look like an artificial sunset to me.  So I guess, based on my experience, the higher priced the bulb, the more accurate (and pleasing) color replication it gives.

[wm3798]

To me, the cheaper the bulb, the more likely it is you'll find it in my house...

Lee

[Bob Bufkin]

Lee.  It's not your cheap bulbs, it's the dimming everytime you son slows down the bicycle-generator!

[Ian MacMillan]

I use GE Chroma50's so that it makes photography easier as they are more ballanced towards film. I am however looking to swapping mine out to all GE Daylights so that the layout looks more pleasant to the eye as I don't even shoot film anymore.

[Chopper Greg]

I know this reply is a little late, but it is relevant.

A few things I have learned in another hobby is that there are two things to look for.

Natural sunlight runs about 5500 K - in fluorescent it tends to look blueish, because most people are used to warm toned bulbs.

The closer that the CRI is to 100, the closer to natural colors at noon, the bulb will reproduce - but most fluorescent are barely make it in the the low to mid 80's regardless of the color temp that they are rated at - metal halide bulbs and LED's are more likely to achieve a good CRI - some even reaching to the mid to high 90's.   A CRI of 97, is not uncommon with either, but you are going to pay for the rating.

Metal Halides and to a lessor extent LED's, are also going to produce the sharp contrast, between lighted areas, and areas of shadow that the sun at noon on a clear day will produce, while fluorescent give less contrast such as might be found on an overcast day.

I am planning to use a MH bulb of about 200-250 W to light my layout.

[Walkercolt]

The newer 1" diameter "T-8" tubes have lots more options as to color tempature and CRI's. Forget any bulb with a CRI lower than 80 for layout lighting. Most often, the green of the scenery material will look "brownish" to the eye, as well as even to a digital camera. Why? These bulbs are deficent in RED wavelengths. You know how you wear the funny red-orange and blue-green glasses at 3-D movies? That's because the rods and cones of your eyes are actually senisitive to only those two colors! Google Dr. Land (of Polaroid and polarized sunglasses fame). The lack of red light makes greens and yellows look "funny". Really cheapo "shop-light" bulbs even make blues look strange and "matching" paints, not match.

[DKS]

You know how you wear the funny red-orange and blue-green glasses at 3-D movies? That's because the rods and cones of your eyes are actually senisitive to only those two colors!

Sorry, that's completely wrong. Not sure where you're getting your information, but it's bogus.

Rods and cones are two different cell types in the retina. Rods are pan-chromatic, and contribute no color information to our perception. They are much more sensitive to light than cones, which are responsible for color vision. The eye is sensitive to light continuously from 400-700 nm. Three types of cone cells respond to chromatic light in different ways, with peaks in violet, green and yellow-orange (not red-green-blue); the brain processes the relative activity of the cones to distinguish up to about 10 million colors. (Dr. Land's "retinex" theory of color perception was a way to explain how colors appear to change according to surrounding colors; it's not an explanation of how the eye functions and is not related to how red-blue 3D movies work.)

Old 3D glasses are colored the way they are because the two colors can be conveniently separated from a single image by filtering, one for each eye, and when the two colors are combined, the brain more or less perceives it as a neutral color, somewhat simulating a black-and-white image. Newer glasses use polarizing filters (courtesy of Dr. Land), which filter light based on the direction of polarization instead of color, so that we can enjoy true 3D in full color.