I discussed the poor light quality of mini-fluorescent bulbs here, a short time ago. Now something else has occurred to me.
I fitted a new m-f bulb to my living-room light around the time of that last post, and which point it set about its inevitable dimming process. The last week or so, my mood has been pretty dark – not full-blown clinical depression, the type where a loaded pistol is a bad thing to have lying around (been there), but depression nonetheless.
A few minutes ago, I had one of those Ping! moments – when something that should have been blindingly obvious finally breaks through – I’m titting here in semi darkness. Well, almost. The m-f bulb, only a few weeks old and the equivalent of 75 Watts, was putting out probably less than 30 Watts. I’d known it was on it’s way out – it was only a temporary measure anyway, being not bright enough even when new – and I’d bought its 120 Watt replacement about 10 days ago, and it was still sitting on top of the TV.
So, I got off my butt, dragged out the stepladder and replaced the bugger, and now I have a nice, bright light and I don’t feel near as down as I did.
I find that worrying, not just because of the effect on me, but how many clinically-depressed people in the world are being made worse by these things?
I don’t have a light meter, but I’ve just taken a reading with my digital camera pointed directly at the bulb, and got 1/220 sec @ f5 at ISO200 – that isn’t at all what you’d callglaring. In fact the bulb – which glowed white when first switched on, now has a distinct orange tinge.
Anyway, I’ve set my self a reminder, in Outlook, to measure its light output next Saturday and every Saturday for the next month or so, to get a subjective measurement of how fast its light output diminishes. I’ll post the results here.
Update, one week later: Light output now equals 1/220 sec @ f3.5, same ISO, and is visibly dimmer (note for non-photographers, the higher the f-number the dimmer the light).
