I do most of my painting in the evening and the lights in my room are rather yellow where can I get a reasonably priced quality daylight lamp from?

Cheers

Pete

The bulb is important.

After going over several different bulbs getting ready for Workshop 2011, the GE Daylight 26 watt puts out 6500k of light, clean cold bright replicating daylight : http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Smart-daylight-bulb-6500k-Misc/dp/B0025Q0MU0

Hope that helps!
gordy

I think that 6500K will have too much blue light. Personally I would give a try with 5500K bulbs when this temperature represents sunny daylight around noon.

Just to make it clear. The bulb temp. is not enough. Even more important could be CRI (color rendering index) of the bulb. Look only for bulbs with CRI above 90.

Thanks for the info, iv just found an ikea desk lamp that's not too bad its pretty White but is much better than the ceiling spot lights, the face that I thought was spot on, well blended had hardly any shadow,depth and looked jaundiced. Gutted, iv done some more on it tonight an hopefully saved it.

Gordy thanks for the advice I will probably invest in a new lamp and some daylight bulbs in the next month or so and try out those bulbs and see which one suits my style best (thank piotr)

I'm surprised there isn't a lamp aimed a figure painters with interchangeable filters for different lighting effects???

Thanks again for all of the advice!

Pete.

Piotr; you sound like a lighting guy. Throwing out the CRI and the Kelvin temps like you did. I bet we have a few conversations over beer about lights at the workshop.

Coming from a video production background, 5600 K lighting is what we use for daylight color balance.

But that can turn yellow when the dust storms blow in!!!

Great info guys, Piotr and Mike definitely something to talk about

Normally I'd agree. But it depends on the bulb; I've seen bulbs supposedly rated the same temp that didn't put out anything like the same light.

There's quite a bit of personal taste and conditioning (what you're used to) when it comes to the temperature of lighting, the much-talked-about North Light that artists are supposed to favour is far more blue than many people would like - it is actually blueish (and hence higher temperature) since it's largely light coming from the sky itself. Only on an overcast day is the light from the northern sky acceptable to paint under IMO, and that has a temp around 6,000°K.

CRI has been mentioned in a few prior threads, most recently in this one from earlier in the year, What Kind of Light... Might also be worth looking at the previous threads that mention OTT Lites.

Einion

I use two of these from IKEA

with these lamps.

They have 5600K colortemperature.

Marc

Iv done a google search an found this studio lamp seams pretty good, it's a 5400k



Would this be ok or am I best going for a 5600k?

I didn't realise how much you need to know, thanks for the help and info!

Cheers

Pete

It's impossible to know in advance Pete, sorry. When it comes to lighting what's 'good' is partly a matter of taste rather than a right/wrong thing, as in so many other areas - even a glowing review from someone else is still just their opinion, and you might disagree.

Really you need to give it a test drive yourself but in terms of the listed spec it looks excellent; it should be a step up from an incandescent and a huge step up from any standard CFL.

Can you get just the bulb though? You could get a lamp that would be more suitable for painting under and just fit the bulb to it, probably save you a bundle.

Einion

I think there is good alternative to OTT Lites even if not better. The BlueMax Lighting has a great offer of full spectrum light bulbs and lamps.
Their HD lamps are very expensive, but they offer great lighting when you are looking for a daylight.
Here are the independent meter readings taken on a sunny day on April around 4PM compared to indoor light emited from BlueMax desk lamp.

Outdoor

Indoor


Here is another comaprison of CFL bulbs from OTT Lite and Bluemax
The Bluemax bulb is rated at 5900K and OTT Lite at 5500K.


From the picture you can notice that BlueMax looks more warm in colors compared to the OTT Lites which are more blue and neutral.

Great to see a WhiBal used!

Just on the photography front guys: if you're shooting under lights that aren't great you need to tweak images in Photoshop or something similar for best results and having one of those in the frame makes adjustment a lot easier.

Was just about to highlight this before I saw your comment under the photo - higher temperature and yet the light is less blue (for anyone that doesn't know this is the exact opposite of what you should expect to see). Just goes to show that you can't judge in advance based on the numbers.

Einion