Just a question for you folks. What type of lighting do you use on your workbench? Fluorescent, LED, Filament, Halogen?
My setup I’ve the years a has gone from a filament bulb fixture above with a couple of fluorescent Reading lamps, but that wasn’t bright enough the older I got.
I replaced the reading lamps with a flourescent tube fixture. I have since replaced that light with an LED one. It’s super bright, but my issue is that my eyes get irritated. I get ocular migraines and these lights don’t induce them, but I get an effect like a migraine in my eyes. It’s a harsh white light and I sometimes have trouble seeing detail because it is so stark.
I guess I’m just curious of the warmth or starkness of your lighting. I’m thinking I need a more natural warmth light.
I’m currently using a 300 watt equivalent CFL bulb with a color temperature of 2700K. 2700K is about the same color temperature as a good, old fashioned soft white incandescent bulb. It doesn’t have the large amounts of blue light in it that irritates your eyes and can actually cause damage. For detail work though, where I need even more light focused on what I’m working on, I use an LED headlamp. I haven’t found any method for lighting for detail work that is more effective than that.
That’s what I was thinking, the blue light from the LED is messing my eyes up. It is a hanging shop light, like a flourescent fixture. I think I am gonna have to try and find a 2700k light. I love how bright this light is, but I can’t deal with how is bugging my eyes out.
This is the one I’m using right now. I’ve been running it for about 4 years I think, and it still works really well. Just takes a minute or two to come up to full brightness, but it starts off pretty bright.
Some tme go I changed my shop light to a 2000 lumen LED unit and bought a smaller LED unit that I fastened to my flourescent ring magnifier ( the swich was going bad).
I recently visited the local hardware store and bought a 2600 LED unit for my garage for half the price of the shop unit. They even had a reasonably priced 3600 lumen unit.
I believe it is important that the bench unit be easily positionable. When I am doing close-up work brighter light stops down my pupils for better vision. When I airbrush glossy paint I like to move the lamp to where I see the lamp reflected in the paint surface.
Being my shop is also my room there only three lights I use for Modeling. They are all OTT lights recommended for jewelry work. I don’t know about temperature and all that stuff. I do know that when I take a picture of anything it’s color looks great!
The lights repeatedly on the box described True Color Temperature whatever that is! I mix my paints according to the color wheel and what it looks like in sunlight! For others, I mix to get scale effect so they don’t look too dark.
Okay, here is my take on sunlight color temperature for bench lighting. I do shoot my finished model photos outdoors, and have never noticed an odd shade even though I have used fluorescent and now LED lights on my bench.
Further, since the color temperature we perceive is a function both the paint tint and the ambient light, I am more interested in how it is perceived in the contest venues. There the lighting is usually fluorescent (now changing in some places to LED) That is why I don’t use sunlight lights at my bench.
I had one of those ring fluorescent magnifier lamps and loved it, though the switch kept going south. I believe the designers didn’t know about inductive kick from fluorescent starters. Also it was a little low on light.
Any way, I discovered at my local building supply that they now make an LED replacement for those bulbs. I installed it and it is way brighter, though I am left with the flakey switch.
I would recommend one of those magnifier lamps. They are easily positionable for getting light right where you need it.
60-watt incandescent lamps (bulbs), one in a fixture over the bench, and the others mounted in scissor-style lamps:
I have holes drilled around the frame of the bench, so I can reposition those lamps as needed. And the design lets me focus the light right where I want it.
