Safelights

Where I can't see LEDs being used much would be ovens, I doubt they could handle the heat.

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Especially for Easy-Bake ovens.

BetterSense said:

Especially for Easy-Bake ovens.

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They still make those???? The problem for a conventional oven though, is rather simple they are capable of over 260℃/500℉, not sure a little electronic circuit encased in clear plastic could handle that.

So what I realized is that the OC filter on this 10x12" Premier is just insane. It'll kill any light put behind it. Literally I think you could put a 120w bulb behind it and it would mute that. It's just too much unless I want to put the thing 4ft from the enlarger and work in the dark essentially. I went and picked up one of those red CFLs and will be paper testing it shortly. I'm just bouncing off the ceiling now.

I use two safelights on opposite ends of the darkroom. One of my safelights is a Kodak unit that has a very dark red filter. I removed the original filter and replaced it with clear red film that is available at most stationary stores. They are sold as covers for booklets etc.
I cut circles to fit the light and sandwich several together until I have the right light intensity. By using several layers I can fit the filtration to the light output of the bulb. I also use a very low wattage lightbulb. If the bulb is to hot, the bulb would damage the filters. Instead of down, I shine the light against the ceiling and achieve a greater lightcoverage over the work area.

I was recently given the following advice from an electronic emissions specialist regarding CFL's.
Do not use them in an area where you spend a lot of time. Do not have them near your person as they give of harmful electronic emissions. The best place for them is the garage but not in your living space.
Not all modern inventions are safe as they are made out to be.

Marcus

wogster said:

The real issue though is things like my 30 year old General enlarger, it uses an ordinary looking, but very large incandescent bulb, but I think the wattage is something oddball (I think 95 or 125 or something like that). Will I be able to find a bulb that will work with this thing, if I ever get it running again.....

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There is always going to be a market for incandescent bulbs for theatre/concert use as CFL or LED cannot come anywhere close. There are LED concert lights but they are relatively low output compared to a normal light.

Unfortunately, bulbs for theatre lighting start at around 300w so you will need to get used to shorter exposure times, use a dimmer which would change the colour and therefore, the effect on MG paper or use a neutral density filter.


Steve.

Interesting. So the red CFL I picked up was some generic 13W from Lowes. I figured what the hell - I'll be paper-testing it anyways. So I put it in and all that and it's of course 20 times brighter than the 25w frosted incandescent + thick OC filter included with the Premier 10x12. So I'm thinking this is definitely going to fog something. I do a paper test, varying pure safelight exposures down the paper from 1m to 10m (shift a card down), throw it in developer - and nothing, pure white. Sanity check myself again with a raw light exposure, as this was new developer, pop it in the dev, and sure enough - instant black. So either these CFLs are perfectly safe or I don't know what to say - but with Ilford MG WT they cause *zero* issue for me and are a heck of a lot brighter.

I should ammend this to let people know that while the CFL reds are safe at moderate distances for Ilford papers, they are NOT safe for other papers like Foma. Easily light grey in less than a minute.

Anyone have experience with this:

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?

clayne said:

Anyone have experience with this:

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?

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I have one, but used for night vision / observatory lighting, not tested as a safelight. I'm sure it would work for papers that work with a red safelight, but it's pretty bright. I expect you'd need to bounce it off the ceiling and watch your distance, but I have no time to test in the near future.

Note also that it's a candelabra base, E12, not the standard E26 or E27 base for regular light bulb sockets. You also can't dim these bulbs with a potentiometer/rheostat because of the electronics.

Lee

That's one of the features of CFL bulbs. Most packages say it consumes only ....watts but puts out light like a .....watt incandescent. Other features like temp. they run at and the life of the CFL.

You would need a pretty low watt CFL to equal a 25 watt incandescent.