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Re: Tinted films for light effects



In a message dated 8/25/2000 12:54:00 Pacific Daylight Time, 
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:

> So here's my question:  Can colored, transparent plastic film ever make 
cheap 
> but ugly lights visually appealing?  Shouldn't it be possible to slip a 
> slightly tinted film beneath some comparatively cheap lights (say, cool 
white 
> NOs or 3000K CFs or mercury vapors) and get a spectrum worthy of the best 
> metal halides?  Imagine 

Not very easily.  An incandescent light has a rather broad spectrum.  You can 
take, say, an ordinary light bulb (approximately 2800-3000 Kelvin), slip a 
blue film between the bulb and the tank, and get a reasonable simulation of 
daylight (at the cost of quantity of light).  Fluorescents, however, are not 
continuous spectrum bulbs.  They vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, from 
model to model, but fluorescents are missing wide swaths from their spectrum. 
 If you try to filter them, you'll end up with some very off-beat color 
effects.  I'm not saying this would or would not be aesthetically appealing 
to you, but the effects would not readily meet your expectations because the 
tubes might be completely missing the light spectrum you need to appear as 
daylight.  Perhaps a better solution would be to shop around for a "daylight" 
bulb.  Noon daylight is described by different authors as falling somewhere 
between 5000K and 6000K.  An inexpensive plant tube, e.g., Gro & Sho, or 
Plant Gro, gives a reasonably close peak in or very near this range of the 
spectrum.  Of course, no filtration would be needed with these tubes.  You 
might also check out the 50/50 tubes.  They have spikes in the high and low 
ends of the daylight spectrum, and do have a rather pleasant appearance (at 
least, they do to my eyes).