Re: CCFL, yes!

[Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Well, people often say they like the color and brightness of the
>Cabin light panel, and it uses a 5000K CCFL!  Sounds perfect to me.
>:^)
>
>Info about the Cabin from http://www.introphoto.co.uk/cabin.htm:
>
>>>Precision Colour Temperature
>>>Daylight colour temperature of 5000K is achieved by using a
>>>unique, high-tech inverter driven cold cathode fluorescent
>>>lamp. Illumination is flicker free.

  Yes but 5000K doesn't tell the whole
story. A better figure of merit is
the CRI (colour rendition index I think).
90 is the lowest considered good enough
for a (slide viewing) light box and 100
is perfect.

  Cabin doesn't tell us what their CRI
rating is, and people on photo.net have
criticized it for having odd colour behaviour.
And when I used mine to light some
crystal for a photo the light came out
somewhat greenish.

  So the Cabin light source isn't perfect
but I'm worried that the spikey RGB
phosphor of the DigiKey tube you mention
is even worse.

  If someone wants to test their CCFL
they could take a photo of it using
slide film and see if it comes out
white or green or some other colour.
My homemade light box looks orangey
to the eye but comes out quite green
in a slide photo.

  Here's the photo.net thread on the
thin light panels:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000dQW

Greg