fluorescent what colour is best for working under?

happyhero

Hi, I have a shed where I do a fair amount of carpentry, what would be the best colour fluorescent tube to get for this sort of thing, daylight white or warm white?

I see some just say white, do you know what kind of white these are likely to be?

Any help appreciated.

evoke

Daylight. As bright as possible too.

Think about it: your eyes work best in natural daylight!

-taff

daylight vote - they really do look like it too.

lstar337

We have daylight SAD tubes, but I find them a little too blue for the office. So I put a daylight SAD tube and a normal white tube into a double fitting. It offers a good balance I think.

evoke

^ It's worth checking the colour temperature value for a 'daylight' light. Many are advertised as daylight but are stretching the definition somewhat.

Natural visible daylight has a narrow spectrum from the orangey end to the blueish end.

Therefore companies can get away with advertising daylight lights simply because the 'colour temperature' is within that spectrum.

The colour temperature that makes you feel good is one where you feel like you are being exposed to sunshine. This is the kind of lamp that you need!

Colour temperature is measured in Kelvins. When you see a light sold as a 'daylight' light then check the colour temperature of the light.

The colour temperature of 'daylight' bulbs can vary between around 4000 Kelvins to around 8000 Kelvins - this is at the white to blueish end of the spectrum. Generally the lower the number, the warmer the 'feel' of the light (i.e. the more yellow it is). When you get to 8000 Kelvins of colour temperature then you're looking at a very cold feel with a marked blue tint.

If you still find 4000 Kelvins too 'cold' and white in terms of feel then find a lamp at around 3000 Kelvins of colour temperature. These aren't technically daylight lamps though as they'll feel quite warm and yellow.

ValHaller

I would suggest a highish level of warm white for general lighting plus a no compromise daylight white for task lighting.

cyclonebri1

In a shed where you do detailed work it has to be daylight, it's not as if you want "ambience lighting";);)

Incidentally it is amazing to actually switch the colour temp as a comparator, the difference can be amazing. To explain, I used to work for a company that supplied packaging into many major manufacturers.
We had light cabinets which could switch between Ultra violet, standard fluorescent, daylight, black light etc etc, We even had 1 cabinet with individual manufacturers stocked tube colour, ie Boots used a different temp to Avon cosmetics. Pedantic stuff