New light box from Home Depot

[Drew Wiley]

The labels and dials are usually way way off even in considerably more expensive units. It takes a good color temp meter to detect what's really going on. But in this case, all that matters is adjusting the illumination to your personal eye comfort level. Enjoy.

[Bob Salomon]

Exactly that Drew, its what I need for sorting and aligning the negs in the carriers. It can be set on different color temperatures and I like it on 5000k but theres no telling how accurate that label is. Thanks for clarifying.

5000K by itself doesn’t mean much without knowing what the CRI of the fixture and light source is. For photo you need 95+.

[Drew Wiley]

Until one gets way up there in pro LED panel expense, it's all just marketing labeling, Bob. I bought a pair of mid-level panels (20 times more expensive than what he's describing) for copystand purposes, adjustable color temp up to 5500K. The pair are mismatched and neither will get up to 5500; they didn't even factor in the yellowishness of the plastic diffusion material. But using a color meter, I got them both adjusted to 5000K at equal lumens, suitable for my copystand needs, and distinctly nicer to work with than my old Lowell hot lights. For backlit copies I have something far better, truly around 98CRI and very evenly illuminated at true 5000K at the surface where it counts. Sorting tables don't need anywhere near that kind of level of sophistication.

[Oslolens]

Here is the IKEA version, we just installed two 60x60cm on the kitchen wall. Sunset-mode is not pretty https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/floalt-...trum-60332214/

Sent fra min SM-G975F via Tapatalk

[choiliefan]

From one of the comments at the HD site:

"The problem is the light from the LED. The colors are wrong. It's not 3000K/4000K/5000K like they say. Not even close. It's more like a very, very yellow 2700K, good solid 4000K, and maybe almost 5000K (probably about 4500K). The yellow 2700K is more like old yellow fluorescent. Not quite bug-light yellow, but approaching that. I can't really tell much difference between the 4000K and 5000K settings at all. It's a little bluer, but not much brighter and it's definitely not daylight. DSLR won't even try to read it as daylight; hard fail on that. The colors just aren't as advertised at all. I needed 3000K and 5000K. I got neither. I'm probably not keeping it. I can do an 18" fluorescent/LED conversion and get the light I need for less than half the price. It won't fill the space like this one or provide even lighting like this one, but at least it'll be the right color."

[Gary Beasley]

Thats about on par with most of the consumer grade led lights. But it may or may not be the right tool for the job. At least for this function it works. You want precise and accurate color you have to pay for it.

[Tin Can]

I got a free sample, i paid shipping, from a USA LED Panel Manufacturer

A high end product

It did not hit exact K numbers

and no I won't disclose source

It is darn good

[John Olsen]

I'm not shooting color transparencies anymore so the light box quality problem is way in my past. I still have my trusty and cheap Bretford Acculight light box, which in side-by-side testing matched the expensive MacBeths (at Carl's Darkroom, Albuquerque). I see there are Bretford Acculight products, probably as old as mine, out on Ebay. Maybe some of the people unhappy with modern LEDs should take a look. Can't be any worse than what some of the posts above have indicated. I know, I know, if it ain't modern it can't be good enough.

[Bob Salomon]

I'm not shooting color transparencies anymore so the light box quality problem is way in my past. I still have my trusty and cheap Bretford Acculight light box, which in side-by-side testing matched the expensive MacBeths (at Carl's Darkroom, Albuquerque). I see there are Bretford Acculight products, probably as old as mine, out on Ebay. Maybe some of the people unhappy with modern LEDs should take a look. Can't be any worse than what some of the posts above have indicated. I know, I know, if it ain't modern it can't be good enough.

There was a super studio in St Louis that equipped all of their photographers with Rodenstock lenses from us. On a visit to their new studio, that had been a supermarket, with their dealer I saw that each shooting bay had 4’ horizontal and vertical Acculight boxes to check their chromes. The boxes had black circles all over them with numbers in them. Being curious, I asked them what the circles and numbers were? They explained that they were the different K readings across the boxes and that they were about to return for more even illuminated boxes. This was a catalog studio and they shot multiple objects like jewelry in each shot that would appear on the same page so even, matching backgrounds and color were critical so they needed far more accurate boxes.
As an aside, since this had been a supermarket, it had large windows facing the street and were facing west. To keep sunlight and gawkers out they painted the inside of the windows black. While we were there there were several loud cracks and the painted, plate glass windows cracked and then broke from the build up of the heat! Scared the hell out of us!

[John Olsen]

There was a super studio in St Louis that equipped all of their photographers with Rodenstock lenses from us. On a visit to their new studio, that had been a supermarket, with their dealer I saw that each shooting bay had 4’ horizontal and vertical Acculight boxes to check their chromes. The boxes had black circles all over them with numbers in them. Being curious, I asked them what the circles and numbers were? They explained that they were the different K readings across the boxes and that they were about to return for more even illuminated boxes. This was a catalog studio and they shot multiple objects like jewelry in each shot that would appear on the same page so even, matching backgrounds and color were critical so they needed far more accurate boxes.
As an aside, since this had been a supermarket, it had large windows facing the street and were facing west. To keep sunlight and gawkers out they painted the inside of the windows black. While we were there there were several loud cracks and the painted, plate glass windows cracked and then broke from the build up of the heat! Scared the hell out of us!

Good story!