Layout Lighting

[jimsabol]

I realize that it's a matter of taste, but what is your favorite color temperature (degrees Kelvin ) for layout lighting?  2500?  4000?  5:000?  5500?  Jim here.

[dstarr]

The eye adapts to the color of the light, and given a few minutes, colors look right to the eye, no matter what color temp is.  Ordinary light bulbs . praised for their warm and natural look, have a color temp around 2600K or there abouts.  Sunlight is about 5500K.  Not only does the eye adapt, the digital camera's adapt, and even film could be had balanced for daylight (5500K) or "tungstun" (2800K).

  More important is the "color rendering index".  Light from glowing tungstun or sunstuff is composed of all colors (frequencies) of light.  Light from excited gases and phosphors  ( mercury vapor and fluorescent lamps)  has only a few widely separated colors (a line spectrum).  As long as there is some red, some blue, and some green in the lamp spectrum the light will look white to our eyes.  But, if I am a color paint, reflecting one color of light and absorbing all others (that's  how color paint works ) AND the lamp doesn't have any light of my color for me to reflect, the color is going to look bad.  The old "cool white" fluorescent tubes were particularly bad this way, and reds always looked terrible under "cool white" tubes. 

   Modern fluorescent tubes, the skinny 40 watt jobs, are a good deal better at color rendering, and make our railroads, which have a lot of brown, and box car red, look much better.  I don't know just how the color rendering index works, except that higher indexes mean better looking color.   And a higher price.  

   For a serious lamp selection trip, take some color samples that you are familiar with, along and observe them under the salesman's lamps.  Compare how they look under sunlight  and make a subjective decision.

[selector]

I agree,  we seem to adapt to what is available to us that is incident upon the viewing surface.  Digital cameras should be reasonably adaptable too, but I find I have to keep a close eye on the resulting image when I am setting up a photo, often forcing another setting to convince myself that there is nothing better available in the way of a setting.  The camera is right about 90% of the time, but only 90%.

I favour the GU10 halogens, but have found that the 35 watt versions work just as well as the 50 watt ones, only less hot.  They now have LED's with the same two-pin twist contacts fhat can be used in track lighting taking the GU10 halogens until recently.  But, oh, do they cost!!

Crandell

[BroadwayLion]

Interesting. I knew about the Kelvin Temperatures, and do recommend something in the 5000K range, but of course that is not what I have in my train room. Point is, I don't know what they put in up there. It is a former class room with florescent lights.

However the LION *has* been playing with colors in photographs, and if you paw through my collection (Click on the "LIONS with CAMERAS" link in my signature, you will see that I have shifted all of my photos deep into the "warm" spectrum. It makes the photos appear to be "stormy" and at least according to me, interesting.

ROAR

[Doc in CT]

Nothing says that the lighting has to be of one type or temperature. 

I would agree with David's point that the color spectrum has a lot to do with our perception (which is more adaptable than a digital camera.

[doctorwayne]

In my opinion, the quantity of the light is even more important than the colour.  Both digital cameras and the viewer's eyes will adapt to whatever colour is used, but if it doesn't illuminate the layout sufficiently, what's the point?  Of the layouts I've seen on various layout tours, I'd say at least 80% of them needed more light.

I have used lights colour-balanced for colour film, and while it looked (and photographed) great, I would have needed to install probably twice as many fixtures in order to properly illuminate the entire layout. 
For my current layout, I opted for Cool White fluorescents, and based that solely on their lumen output.  I'm currently using 18 4' double tube fixtures in a room of about 560sq.ft. and would add more if it were possible (the room is an odd shape, with some restrictions within the suspended ceiling).

A digital camera has no difficulties with the light quality, and when the illumination is sufficient, even the reds "look red".

Wayne

[lifeontheranch]

I don't often post here but this subject is near and dear to my heart and I recently experimented with various combinations of light to determine what works best for me.

I selected my sky backdrop color by matching paint chips to the actual sky horizon visible through the train room window at early afternoon in the summer. When I painted the walls it appeared to match well until night time when the cool white room lighting was on. The cool whites made the backdrops appear a greener shade of blue. That caused me to experiment with different light sources trying to get the backdrop color (under artificial lighting) to match what it looked like during daylight. LEDs alone made the backdrop too blue.

In the end, I am using a combination of 5000K florescent and 6500K LED to get the desired natural sunlight look. Now the backdrop is nearly the same color blue during daylight as it is under artificial light.

There is a detailed post here: http://www.lkorailroad.com/lighting-proof-of-concept/

[jimsabol]

Dear Life on the Ranch:  I can't make the http://www.lkorailroad.com/lighting-proof-of-concept/ link work.  DoI have it correctrly?  Jim here.  I'm at [e-mail]

[jimsabol]

Guys thanks for all your suggestions. Lilghting technology changes almost by the week.  I'm thinking of running 5000 K Blue Max full sprctrum fluorescents with a CRI of 91 (98 is as high as it goes) at about 3000 Lumens--and lots of them.  I think that the Blue Max full spectrem bulbs with their higher CRI than even Ott lights is the way to go.  I also like the estimated 34,000 hours uselful life in the Blue Maxes.  Jim here.  Would love to hear any further comments: [e-mail]    

[Gwolfe]

I would say it's not just a matter of color temperature, but also the quality of the light: diffused vs hard shadows, angle and direction, and call it the "focus," where lighting fixtures are placed and aimed to highlight an area or a scene. I plan to use compact fluorescents as light source for working on the railroad and track lighting for running trains, as they will allows me to adjust the angle and focus. I can add additional fixtures where needed and move them to achieve the best effect. I also want to be able to dim the lights to simulate different times of day. Glenn