Fluorescent tubes

[Scotty230358]

My darkroom is 10ft by 10ft by 7ft and is lit by 3 large spotlights. The biggest problem is that they put out a lot of heat and also the quality of light is not that good.

I intend to replace them with 6ft 70 watt fluorescent tubes in a twin light fitting. I was going to opt for daylight tubes with a colour temperature of 6500K. A prismatic diffuser will help bounce the light around a bit. Hopefully they will run a bit cooler as well.

My main concern is afterglow. My electrician says that tubes have improved over the years and afterglow is no longer a problem.

Is there anyone out there who has fluorescent tubes fitted in their darkroom and did you have any issues with them?

Thank you.

Adrian

[Jerry Bodine]

My darkroom is 10ft by 10ft by 7ft and is lit by 3 large spotlights. The biggest problem is that they put out a lot of heat and also the quality of light is not that good.

I intend to replace them with 6ft 70 watt fluorescent tubes in a twin light fitting. I was going to opt for daylight tubes with a colour temperature of 6500K. A prismatic diffuser will help bounce the light around a bit. Hopefully they will run a bit cooler as well.

My main concern is afterglow. My electrician says that tubes have improved over the years and afterglow is no longer a problem.

Is there anyone out there who has fluorescent tubes fitted in their darkroom and did you have any issues with them?

Thank you.

Adrian

Buried in this thread are a number of comments about the use of fluorescents in the darkroom that are worth reading:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=65528

[climbabout]

Adrian - I have worked in the electrical supply business for close to 35 years and while the ballast and lamp technologies of fluorescent lights have changed over the years, the lamps still emit an afterglow. Even the newer compact fluorescent spiral lamps. I tried some of these recently and have switched back to standard halogen and incandescent. The glow is not noticeable under normal lighting conditions, but you can certainly see it in a darkened room - especially once your eyes have adjusted. The afterglow is not likely to be bright enough to affect photographic paper, but it would probably affect film - to what degree I'm not sure, but why take the chance?
p.s. - If you absolutely need to use the fluorescents for general illumination - just put another smaller light in the room to use just before you need to handle film and leave the fluorescents off. Thats what I used to do. If the fluorescents have been off for several minutes (10 or 15), the afterglow will be gone.

[Brian C. Miller]

+1 on that.
I have both incandescent and flourescent, and I work with the incandescent when I am handling film. I haven't seen a problem with my flourescent lamp afterglow when I am handling paper, but I don't pull paper out of the safe until at least a couple of minutes after I've turned off the light.

To see just how much afterglow you have, just close your eyes and put your hand over them, wait a bit, then turn out the light. CF bulbs have quite a bit, and it varies for the type of flourescent tube you have. Then do a paper test.

[ROL]

Ditto the concerns of flourescent. I am replacing 75 watt daylight balanced halogen spot and floods (hot) with 35 watt low voltage Solux, as they burn out.

[Scotty230358]

Adrian - I have worked in the electrical supply business for close to 35 years and while the ballast and lamp technologies of fluorescent lights have changed over the years, the lamps still emit an afterglow. Even the newer compact fluorescent spiral lamps. I tried some of these recently and have switched back to standard halogen and incandescent. The glow is not noticeable under normal lighting conditions, but you can certainly see it in a darkened room - especially once your eyes have adjusted. The afterglow is not likely to be bright enough to affect photographic paper, but it would probably affect film - to what degree I'm not sure, but why take the chance?
p.s. - If you absolutely need to use the fluorescents for general illumination - just put another smaller light in the room to use just before you need to handle film and leave the fluorescents off. Thats what I used to do. If the fluorescents have been off for several minutes (10 or 15), the afterglow will be gone.

Firstly, thank you all for your input. I always load my spirals and dark slides in a Harrison film changing tent. I don't trust my darkroom to be fully dark for handling unexposed or unprocessed film. Its fine for papers, I have never had an instance of safe light or extraneous light fog.

In addition to my 3 spot lamps I have a small 40 watt inspection lamp over my wet bench and this gets used most of the time during my printing sessions. The overhead light is used when developing films or when toning or just messing about. My small inspection lamp is particularly valuable when filling graduates as I can back illuminate the marks on the beaker.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I stopped using FL tubes years ago as they played tricks with papers that have brightners in them. And the afterglow drove me nuts. I have two 60W incandescent bulbs in reflectors in my darkroom, and that's it.

[Eric Woodbury]

My darkroom is about the same size. I have two 8' track lights with about 5 each 25W halogen bulbs. Color is good. I can position them anyway I like. I have a string pull switch that allows me to turn either one on/off. I also have a couple of gooseneck lamps with 60W incandescent bulbs. These are on footswitches for quick viewing of prints in the fix. Safelights are LEDs, either bulbs in clamp-ons or a string of red Christmas lights.

[IanMazursky]

That afterglow on CFL’s sucks! But I came across another strange afterglow in my darkroom.
An old CRT TV. The Phosphors in the screen glow for a longtime after i turn the lights in the room off.
I know i should remove the tv but i had to make the majority of my office into a darkroom for my LVT film recorder.
I did however get a large black plastic bag and drape it over where i load film. No fogging whatsoever but im still cautious.
And the TV is a good distraction when i waiting for the jobo to finish.

[B.S.Kumar]

What about the new LED lights? Do they also emit an afterglow? They're certainly cool, and last a pretty long time.

Kumar