And that future has finally arrived in the here and now. I’m not talking about LED lights for photography or video, tho Kirk Tuck said something like this since quite a while (and having bought all of his books, I also have his book about using LEDs for photography of course).
Instead I’m talking about lamps and lights for the normal household. Today Mitchie went to a local supermarket (called “Penny” in case you’re interested), and they decided to act like the godfather – making her an offer she couldn’t refuse. So she brought home an LED table lamp for 10€. The packing said something like “3W power”, and they must mean the output – she measured the power drawing with 6 Watts. But these lights are incredibly bright for taking only 6 Watts; much better in fact than our 50W halogen lights. So we decided to get three more of those.
I took a photo of one which is in our living room right now:
The packing also says “warm white”, and without really taking grey card test shots until now, I set the camera to 3600K to get the image inside the electronic VF-2 viewfinder as close to reality as I could – and in fact even on my calibrated monitor this looks quite true-to-life. Very nice. A bit cooler than halogen or these energy-saving bulbs we have, but much warmer than most fluorescents. They actually remind me a bit of Edison bulbs which aren’t sold here anymore (because they draw much too much power which they mostly transform to heat instead of light).
This is another photo taken with the Olympus E-PL1 and the 45mm lens. I can understand why Mitchie likes hers so much (and why whoever has one is praising it); it’s a real fine optic.
Thanks for viewing.
Hmm … a friend of mine has converted to LED completely, and he told me, that in the beginning he bought the cheapest LEDs he could find, with the result that they had an extremely high failure rate. May not be a problem any more, but I’m definitely interested in your long-term experience.
Ok – I’ll let you know. You might actually be right; we’ve made that same experience with the cheaper energy-saving fixtures (like from super markets, or even from Ikea). Buying some brand names like Philips or Osram does make a difference, and I’ve heard similar things about LEDs for our E27 big light sockets…
I’ve had an edison based LED in my bathroom for about a year and a half now with no problems. The quality of the light is great. I’m considering taking the plunge and changing out all the bulbs in the house with LEDs. The only issue I have found is in sourcing small, MR16 type track lights.
Did a quick search, but I don’t know if you mean ones like these or http://www.aeonlighting.com/mr16.htm or these Kirk…
Personally I dislike LED and CFL stuff, always have, but I make the best of things and I do use them. It is the future and we have to adapt. This article might be of interest to you
http://earthsky.org/science-wire/scientists-mimic-fireflies-to-make-brighter-leds
Thanks for the link Libby!