Home lighting geeking

[darxus]

I'm planning to replace all the bulbs in my house with something like ALZO full spectrum 5500K CRI 91 27 watt CFLs.

Are there any better options I'm missing?

I'm pretty sure I want to go with color temperature 5500 Kelvin because it seems to be the most standard in the vicinity of daylight, and, in particular, matches camera flashes.

So I'm basically looking for 5500K light bulbs with the highest CRI, color rendering index. The highest CRI is 100, matching mid-day sunlight. Worst is 0 (spiky color spectrum). I haven't found anything at 5500K over 91 CRI.

There are halogens at 100 CRI, and filtering them to 5500K might be fun.

I hate old style fluorescents: 60 CRI, cycling 60 times a second (flicker). But the new fluorescents cycle 24,000 times per second (no flicker) with 91 CRI. Good.

Comments

[milktree.livejournal.com]

Based on their website, you're using CRI wrong. 100 is *tungsten* light, not sunlight, and it's as film sees it, not as eyes see it.

"daylight" bulbs can be really scratchy blue, I'd get a couple before committing the whole house to them. I've got some daylights I really don't like, I prefer the warmer 4500k ones.

If instant on is important to you, they might piss you off. CFLs (although much better than they used to be) still don't have 100% brightness at first.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Where did you get the tungsten thing? CRI doesn't relate to any color temperature or type of light. Tungsten incandescent is inherently CRI 100, as is, I believe, halogen. It's about how evenly the colors are represented, not which colors are represented.

I am planning to try a few before doing the whole house, thanks. But I'm pretty certain I'll like them or die trying.

[milktree.livejournal.com]

http://www.alzodigital.com/online_store/color_render_index_definition.htm

I clicked on "CRI" on the page in the original post.

What's the difference between "which colors" and "how evenly"? They smell pretty similar to me.

If as that page suggests the goal is to mimic tungsten's effect on film, then which colors (and how much of each) is really important. But film does *not* have the same color response as your eyes. Even daylight/flash film.