What type of white spectrum work light is best for a darkroom?

[Steve Ruddy]

I'm remodeling and wife wants cans in the darkroom and laundry. I always liked fluorescent shop lights nowadays LED shop lights. What do you all like and why.

 

[retinax]

I have to say I like them dim-ish, and warm. Then the eyes don't need to adjust so much when I switch to safe light. Obviously for color darkroom, high CRI is necessary, and could be helpful in b&w darkroom if one does a lot of toning and other things that introduce colors.

I often read the recommendation of having light similar to the light under which the print will be displayed, for evaluation. I'm not sure if that is all that relevant for me, too many other factors come into play that determine what a print will look like when on the wall, such as matte, glass and frame, viewing distance, color and reflectivity of wall around it.

 

[Bill Clark]

Info on light color temps:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

You mention darkroom and laundry. If you’re going to use your laundry room as a darkroom that space could have issues to deal with. If your laundry room has a clothes dryer lint will be a challenge.

At any rate, hope the article helps you.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Don't install fluorescent shop lights. I made the mistake of choosing them for my first darkroom.
In total darkness I saw the tubes would continue to glow faintly for several minutes after being turned off.

Chris

 

[Steve Ruddy]

Info on light color temps:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

You mention darkroom and laundry. If you’re going to use your laundry room as a darkroom that space could have issues to deal with. If your laundry room has a clothes dryer lint will be a challenge.

At any rate, hope the article helps you.

Thanks, the color temp I like is 5-65k. I have 6500K T5 in there now, and they work fine but not for new construction as they hang on chains. I'm looking for a clean new ceiling install of the lights. My main question is about coverage and efficiency. I don't think cans would give me the best of either but I don't really know as I have no experience with them. I used to manufacture lighting for reef aquariums so I know about color temp, ballasts, ect. I need a good argument against using cans unless they are actually a good choice.

 

[eli griggs]

LEDs that give off 65K light, with no lingering after light, as with Shop and Spiral florescent bulbs.

These are dimmable and you could, do as some LED studio cake-pan light makers do, and actually mix a few lines of cold and warm LEDs in the area you need their light and with separate controls, mix the lighting your self, as needed to you preferences of a quality light.

Good luck.

 

[Hans Berkhout]

For judging your prints: ColorView by Solux. Frosted 29Watt. Aim for EV 7 measured on white board @ viewing area to allow for print dry-down effect.

 

[Ronald M]

Don't install fluorescent shop lights. I made the mistake of choosing them for my first darkroom.
In total darkness I saw the tubes would continue to glow faintly for several minutes after being turned off.

Chris

Right on.

Bought some strip lights at Lowes, wave something under one end for off/on. Hold something under same end it brightens and dims. 50 bulb LED and you can gang them together. They are not yellow.
Cri I do not know.

I have two 100 watt blue LED over my painting table. Decent CRI. Art shops sell really good CRI bulbs, but they tend to be dim.

For color photography real good CRI is imperative.
One night I could not sleep and painted some water color trees on the kitchen table. WC paper, not table it self! Morning surprise I had a nice painting with blue trees. If you know color mixing, you will understand. PAY FOR CRI.

 

[peterm1]

I recently replaced all the ceiling lights in my home. Previously they were old style (though not THAT old) halogen downlights - all 25 of them spread across the home.) Some of these had failing transformers and it was time to do something.

I selected LED downlights with switchable color temps (warm, white and one other setting). For normal use I selected warm as it provides a nicer, more natural color in living spaces, though for a darkroom you may prefer a pure white balance. The big advantage for using these for specialist applications like in dark rooms / work areas is that the color balance is switchable even though there are only three options. There are other advantages I found too. The first is that they are much brighter than each halogen light they replace so ambient lighting is, overall, now much brighter in my home. The second is they come equipped with a power plug so they are literally plug and play and in my case I did not require an electrician to fit them for this reason. That amounted to big savings. The third is that they generate almost no heat. The fourth is that they are as cheap as all get out. I think I paid no more than $8 each (though some models such as those that support dimmers are more expensive). The ones I bought have their own inbuilt diffuser to produce even lighting across a surprisingly large floor area (the old halogen ones were more directional which is probably why their were so many of them. The fifth and final advantage is that they draw a miniscule amount of power. I think mine draw 7 watts and as mentioned above, put out a huge amount of light for this tiny energy usage. I forget just how many lumens their output is rated at, but its a lot.

For me the proven advantages of this form of lighting are so great that if I had to replace say fluorescent lighting in a work area, I would use them in a heartbeat.

I was planning to build a home made slide copier so I could digitize my many slides that I have in storage. One of these lights was to be the light source. In the event I bought an old slide copier (bellows type) and it was more convenient to buy a small rectangular format, battery powered LED work lamp as it folds up and can be easily put away in a drawer when finished and is not reliant on proximity to mains power. But I have no doubt a spare downlight from my recent upgrade would served to do the job just as well in practice as the light is even and bright.

 

[Dwig]

I'm remodeling and wife wants cans in the darkroom and laundry. I always liked fluorescent shop lights nowadays LED shop lights. What do you all like and why.

I vote for having two completely separate white light "systems" in a darkroom.

1. a print inspection light - this should provide somewhat similar light intensity as the lighting where the prints will be displayed. Also it should be located so that when you are standing by the fixer and/or a post-fix water rinse station you don't cast any shadow. This is generally best done with a light directly over the inspection location. It also should be provided with a means of turning it on and off with wet hands (non conductive pull string, ...) and not be fluorescent.
2. a general room light - this is used when the darkroom is not being used as such (e.g. cleaning, chem mixing, ...). This can be a large single or multiple small (e.g. can) lights and should be fairly bright.

For both, I would prefer LEDs.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

Definitely not fluorescents, for the afterburn mentioned.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I use bulbs, ecofif, 1.6w E27, 3000K in Ikea hinge lamps. Excellent for B+W. Also excellent for repair work and for adjusting focal plane shutters. Light in the darkroom is very important.

Safe lights (for B+W) are old Philips bulbs, 230v, PF 710E * 8M, yellow/green, also in Ikea hinge lamps.

Erik.

 

[Hari]

I just take the filter off the Kodak Bullet Safelight,
but I use 49 watt cool bulbs.

 

[Rob-F]

Don't install fluorescent shop lights. I made the mistake of choosing them for my first darkroom.
In total darkness I saw the tubes would continue to glow faintly for several minutes after being turned off.

Chris

This is true, and also fluorescent lights have an atypical color spectrum.

I use a small halogen spotlight over the fixer tray.