Compact Fluorescents

BobNewYork · Feb 12, 2009

Does anyone know if compact fluorescent lights have the same "afterglow" issues that fluorescent tubes do? I was about to put them in my darkroom but remembered you have to wait 15 mins or so after switching off fluorescent tubes before you can open film or paper.

Ken N · Feb 12, 2009

Yes, they have a nasty afterglow. Also, they can flash a few minutes after being turned off.

BobNewYork · Feb 12, 2009

Thanks Ken. Guess I'll have to revert to being an ecoterrorist !!!

Bob-D659 · Feb 12, 2009

Go halogen, they are still politically correct.

Reinhold · Feb 12, 2009

Waiting 15 minutes is overkill...

My observations when using standard 4' single tube flourescents...

For paper (when printing), you can get to work immediately.
The afterglow is far too weak to fog paper. Period.

For film, it depends on film speed and ceiling height (lamp to film distance).
Wait one minute, and you can get right to work with slow (ISO 25, or so) films.
Wait two minutes for medium (120 speed) films.
Three minutes ought to do it for 400 speed films.

I have had standard 4' flourescents in my darkrooms for the past 50 years.
Quality of light is just as important as quality of dark, and after 3 minutes dark quality is top-notch.
Flourescents reduce shadows better than any other common lighting as far as I'm concerned.
Judging print quality under shadow-free ilumination is critical for my 74 year old eyes, and only flourescents fill the bill.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

Nicholas Lindan · Feb 12, 2009

There must be some variation in the bulbs -- the CFLs I use have no after glow. I have never seen an afterflash. I use CFLs for 90% of the house lighting and as the main white lights in the darkroom. Bulbs are from Costco, Home Depot & Phillips.

Because CFLs work at high frequency there is no need to use a long persistence phosphor to minimize lamp flicker, as there is in regular fluorescent bulbs.

Photo Engineer · Feb 12, 2009

Just remember that all fluorescent bulbs contain mercury or mercury salts. It has been argued that there is not enough in one to worry about breakage, but since many mercury salts will fog films, it remains to be seen if there is a long term problem of any sort for any reason.

PE

DannL · Feb 12, 2009

I use one in my Kodak safelight. I think it's 13w. No problem there.

ic-racer · Feb 12, 2009

Nicholas Lindan said:
There must be some variation in the bulbs -- the CFLs I use have no after glow.

I have them in my darkroom and have the same experience. The only reason I am progressively replacing them is that, for me, they produce no $$ savings because they are expensive and all the ones I have used fry their electronics after a couple of years. Perhaps the electronics of these bulbs are not designed for an "on-off-on-off" environment.

CJBo001 · Feb 12, 2009

Most of my household lighting is now CFL's. I had one in particular that had a very noticeable afterglow but most of the rest do not. I have a regular 2' flourescent in my darkroom area which also has a noticeable afterglow, but I try not to make it the last light I turn off. I think it is completely safe by the time I have located the paper by safelight and opened the envelope.

Nicholas Lindan · Feb 13, 2009

ic-racer said:
for me [CFLs] produce no $$ savings because they are expensive and all the ones I have used fry their electronics ... not designed for an "on-off-on-off" environment.

There is little savings in the winter if you heat the house, and a cost penalty for using CFLs if you use electric heat.

There is, however, a terrific cost savings in the summer if you use air conditioning - add 100W of heat from a light bulb and it takes another 50W to pump the heat out through the air conditioner - better yet if they help keep things cool enough that the air conditioning doesn't get turned on.

They don't hold up well with rapid on-off cycling. And they don't hold up in closed enclosures where they may get hot. If they are used in base down, open air circulation applications they hold up quite well.

Definitely oversold -- they make no sense unless bought at Costco prices.

Steve Smith · Feb 13, 2009

I think CFL is going to be a short lived, interim technology. I am already seeing LED versions of some of the smaller halogen lights and my friends who run a sound and light company have tri-colour LED stage lights amongst their equipment.

Give it a few years and I think LEDs will take over domestic lighting.

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Steve.

Ken N · Feb 13, 2009

I agree that LEDs are the future in lighting. Unfortunately, the per-lumen cost is still too high. There were two companies that were in the race to develop an LED automotive headlight. We're not too far off.

I've used the LED stage lights and they are outstanding for some applications, like washes. But for primary lighting, they need to be 4X the brightness.

Another oddity about LED lighting is the fact that they are extremely narrow in the wavelengths being emitted. When using the tri-color lights, you can see huge swings in fabric colors. The "white" LEDs are hardly full-spectrum.

Ray Rogers · Feb 13, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Just remember that all fluorescent bulbs contain mercury or mercury salts. It has been argued that there is not enough in one to worry about breakage, but since many mercury salts will fog films, it remains to be seen if there is a long term problem of any sort for any reason.

PE

Have they converted trafic lights to LED where you (everyone) are?
here they are everywhere.... I have a nice video of how there made... quite interesting!

I bought a CFLfor the bathroom but I hate it.

BTW, Some FL actually "feature" an after glow.
They have combined glow in the dark with the light and some are very bright!
I have one that makes a nice night light.

About Hg, yes.
I don't know about the dried film in camera etc., but in a mfg. situation yes indeed... a few years ago I found a very expensive LOST digital camera... Oh how I wanted to keep that Beauty! Well - as it is my weekness, I did the right thing and was able to find the owner... he was a reporter for a newspaper... (think Japanese kidnapped by some terrorist group a few years ago...) Needless to say he was very happy to see his camera again! Anyway as it turned out, he actually began as an employee in Fuji Film company and he told me about their paranoid fear of flourescent lights due to the fog problem; years later it is interesting what people will remember!

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