LED Safelight options?

[Pere Casals]

660nm. Perfectly safe.

Regarding the suitable wavelength, I guess that not always the deepest red is the best choice. There is a trade-off between paper sensibility and human eye sensibility.

With same perceived "illumination level" we may expose less the paper with an orange source. Also orange light may allow to pre-view better how the prints are before openning lights.

Sodium lamps have been a good choice:



So a LED around 600nm may also be interesting.

Some sodium lamps did not work because also having emissions in the shorter wavelengths. Today LEDs are cheap and we may try several nm to see what allows to see better without fogging paper.

Perhaps we may need more than one safe light, depending on the materials we use, of course, this may include ortho/orthopan film.

I'm using deep red, but I plan to explore a 610nm solution. Using 610 nm LED may require a filter on the LEDs to block any nm spread in the shorter side, the shorter the wavelength the better we see, but at the same time it would be more important to block the shorter wavelength that can be there.

I was thinking... a way to obtain a pure monochromatic orange would be using a powerful laser through a difuser, this would not require filters, 1W lasers in the 638nm are popular... perhaps this can be explored, the advantage is that allphotons are exactly 638nm, with no spread.

[Pfsor]

Don't know, Pere, but the less spread the light source has the more your posts are spread...

[koraks]

I ordered a few meters of red and white LED strips and two power supplies; I've still got a remote controlled switch laying around and am planning to combine this into a convenient white/safe light setup, distributing the cut strips over the darkroom. Let's see how it works out but for paper, I expect no problems as I already use a mix of cheap red LED bulbs. I'll post back once I installed and test it.

[Martinzo]

I think that using LEDs will help you to save a lot of money. I've read on some sites that this technology is not consuming a lot of electricity. In this way, you make some economies. I also bought a few LED lamps from one of the best manufactures. You can visit LITELUME's website to read more details about their technology and their product. Now, in my house, you will find only LEDs made by these guys. I am very pleased with their product because I never had any problems with it. I never changed any lamp from them.

[John Layton]

Interesting (I think) aside...that my "bargain" Delta large-sized globe style safelight/bulbs, supposedly "OC Amber," are actually slightly redder than other "OC-specified" light sources - but not as red as "red specified" ones. About perfect I think!

[MrDen]

...

Heiland also propose a LED safelight yellow 590nm and red 630nm.
Not only the red 630nm / white 6000K.
What to think about this one?

And the durst labolux?
I got one, still haven't really tested it.
Don't know what to think about it...

[Tin Can]

I used to recommend Led 1 watt bulb. They improved it as is now brighter.

Test and bounce off walls.

[Eric Woodbury]

I've been using these in both RED and AMBER.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...27-lumens/440/

I prefer the RED as it works with everything (I have some Russian paper than requires RED). If you have color blindness in the red, it could be a problem. Developing prints look a little more contrasty in RED than in AMBER. Take advantage of this to see if you need to adjust the contrast of the print. Of course, RED makes skin pale (especially mine) than it is, but AMBER makes me look green.

If the light is too bright, either bounce it off the wall or put a piece of black tape over some of it.

My 9 x 12' darkroom has 7 of these bulbs in pendant and clamp reflector fixtures (the cheap ones from Home Depot).

[j.e.simmons]

Adox makes a red led safelight in 230v. Mirko says they are looking into making it in 110v. They recommend it for working with their new Polywarmtone emulsion.