On Sat, 3 Apr 2004, Lasse Karlsson wrote: > Today I ran into a second hand Philips "UV-A" fluorescent light > unit. I seems to be one of those tanning machines. > > What made me interested in it, was 1) the wheeled type of metal > construction (a simple one) which allows you to conveniently move it > about, 2) Six 40w (totalling 240W) fluorescent tubes fitted into a > box, mirrored to direct the light out of it; 3) the fact that there > seems to be levers to adjust the light power; 4) the fact that this > box fairly easily could be lowered or raised or turned into various > angles to direct the light in desired directions; 5) the assumption > that maybe some sort of simple reflector screen probably could be > fitted to it instead of the lights; 6) the price of some $15 US; > > Now the fluorescent tubes fitted to it are ones aimed at tanning. > (They are UV-lights, right?) There was a warning sign about using it > (carefully read the manual before using etc) - I guess there is a > risk about getting burned or maybe your eyes might get hurt etc.
If the ballast is not compatible with other types of bulbs then it is really easy to change the ballast. It sounds like those are standard 48" 40W ballasts though, and a normal shop bulb will probably work. > Right or wrong I thought these tubes may be interchangeable with other types of > tubes which might be more useful for photographing purposes. > I was thinking that this whole thing may come handy for home studio use, for > producing light maybe in portrait shooting or table top shooting, or to be used for > reflectors. > I am well familiar with how film reads fluorescent light. It probably reads high quality bulbs better. Flourescent bulbs have something called the CRI (color rendering index), where closer to 100 is closer to how our eyes see sunlight. I don't know how well they do with colors for film. Typical flourescent bulbs have a very low CRI, but there are high quality bulbs available with 92 CRI or better. Regular flourescent bulbs have spikes at wavelengths of red, green, and blue to make something which looks sort of white. The high CRI bulbs put out a much more even mix of wavelengths. You'll find the most information on the net about flourescent bulbs by reading about aquariums. That is how I learned about them. alex
