If you put LED lights in your train room, what "color" or Kelvin level did you use?

The Panhandle use 4100 K in both the train room and the workshop.

George

This is what 4000k looks like in my train room. My original plan was to install 3000k lighting. I bought one of the adjustable led lights and found the 3000k setting did make everything too yellow.

I would go for around 4000K, but adjustable are fun to play with.  Daylight (5500 K) will give you more correct color rendition but will drive you nuts if you aren't used to them.

Mine are adjustable between 2700 - 3200 - 4000 - 5000. Most of the time I'm running 3200 K.

3000K.  I like it warmer.  No lab lights.   It's a personal preference.  You'll just need to buy a couple and try them to find the temp you like.

@MikeH posted:

3000K.  I like it warmer.  No lab lights.   It's a personal preference.  You'll just need to buy a couple and try them to find the temp you like.

Me too, I like soft white temperatures like you got from a 60 watt bulb.  Restaurants that use the high temp LED's  look more like an operating room than a nice place to enjoy a meal.  To add in, I hate with a purple passion LED car headlights.  They might be fine in big cities with boulevards and 4 lane highways, but in the country with winding mountain roads you get blinded on a regular basis.

4000K works for me - in my smaller 8 x20 room.  I bought 12” x 48” led panels from Lowe’s and used 5 of them. People also say scenery soaks up light, so I took that into account.

Have fun,

Rich

4000k

2700 - 3100k lights made it look like an overcast day on my layout.  Hung some 4000k LED shop lights and what a difference, things looked more natural.  Going to try higher k just to see what it’s like.

My train room had a bunch of recessed floodlight fixtures when we bought the house, so I used those.  I was loath to start replacing fixtures as that looked to be a significant task.  Besides, the idea of changing the fixtures didn't occur to me until I had a layout under them! The room looked bright until the layout was there, then I had spots of light all over and dark patches.

After several false starts, I found some 2800 Lumen 3000K bulbs that have a wide beam angle for even coverage and are dimmable.  At 20 watts each, I get all the light I need and a pleasing color temperature for very little power.  The beam angle also eliminated the dark patches.  These were the 3rd type of bulb I tested, and finally found the combination of brightness, even lighting, and color temperature I wanted.  I did try some 4000K bulbs, but the light was too harsh for me, YMMV.

Check the out on Amazon: Sunco 2 Pack 2800 Lumens Outdoor Led Flood Light Waterproof PAR38 LED Bulb, Dimmable, 20W=250W, 3000K Warm White, E26 Base

I use 3K around the house. The CEO hates the higher color temps. I even have to buy warm white Christmas lights.

For the train room, 4K is a good balance and will render colors the best overall. For years, 4100K was the standard for fluorescent lighting. 3500K came out about 25 years ago and more people preferred the slightly warmer color.

Remember, our eyes/ brains "see" color through the reflections off of objects.

Here's a non-scientific study in color temperatures and how we interpret them. I have 3500K overhead lights in my shop, but my lighted magnifier is 6400K (both fluorescent). Both wall panels are painted the same colors, just under different lights.

First pic is with just the overhead lights on, second is with the magnifier light over the left panel.

Bob

Thank you, everyone, for your info and photos.  All of it has been very helpful.

My house is 2700K only. Except for the shop, I have fluorescent tubes in there.

I never regretted going to 5000K LEDs after lighting my layout for years with ~2500K halogens then going to 3000K LEDs for a while. Don't go cheap on whatever temp you choose and be sure to pay attention the CRI. 96 or above is best. That info doesn't seem to get printed on the bulb nor the packaging so I guess you might have to take the supplier's word for it in the description.

Here's a photo from a while back taken when I was experimenting with my lighting. I found the 3000K temp to seem dull after a while and found most of my photos were just too orange for my liking unless I intervened. The 3000K lighting is on the left and the 5000K is to the right in this iPad shot. I found that I liked the way all the colors popped with a temp that is considered 'cold', especially the challenging tones of DGLE.

Keep in mind this is dedicated layout lighting. Some of the closest non-layout space lighting got converted to 5000K too so my photography doesn't get interfered with. The rest of my non-layout space and my shop is 3000K.

Interesting thread. Wondering if anyone uses Amazons Barrina 5000K LED strip lights in the train room. These have a V shape LED pattern to help cast light sideways.

I don't want to get too far off the subject, but all you guys posting pictures of your lights. Unless your camera is set to one color temp, it will auto adjust the white balance (AWB) If you really want to see how the light changes around, you have to set the color balance to one setting, then use that setting with different bulbs.  5500 is considered daylight, 3200 is common for tungsten bulbs.  It's a fun test and you might be surprised to see how much your camera and your eyes adjust to color shifts

I went down the rabbit hole of newer LED bulbs with better CRI. Color temperature preference is probably like discussing religion lol, I prefer a warmer 2200k-2700k, it's less sterile. Philips ultra definition bulbs is where I landed. Not sure if it's kosher to post a link to Amazon, but perhaps the video I watched is allowed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeR2uPPCA2k

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

I never regretted going to 5000K LEDs after lighting my layout for years with ~2500K halogens then going to 3000K LEDs for a while. Don't go cheap on whatever temp you choose and be sure to pay attention the CRI. 96 or above is best. That info doesn't seem to get printed on the bulb nor the packaging so I guess you might have to take the supplier's word for it in the description.

Norm brought up the more important issue than color temperature preference which is ultimately subjective.  CRI or Color Rendition Index is a measurement of how close a light source renders colors in relationship to actual sunlight.  The closer to 100 you can get the better.  Any color temperature with poor CRI will ultimately be less pleasing to the eye.

If you go to a manufacturer's website, typically CRI can be determined from the technical literature that is used by designers and lighting engineers.  The major lighting manufacturers all typically have this information available with some research.

What is the best Kelvin to get natural colors from the Lionel Caboose Cam?

I currently have 2650 K lamps and the videos from the Caboose Cam has colors that do not look like what I see in the train room. I link the Cam to an iPhone 15, a new iPad, and my wife's iPhone 13 and none of the colors look like they appear in "real life".

@Jeff2035 posted:

What is the best Kelvin to get natural colors from the Lionel Caboose Cam?

I currently have 2650 K lamps and the videos from the Caboose Cam has colors that do not look like what I see in the train room. I link the Cam to an iPhone 15, a new iPad, and my wife's iPhone 13 and none of the colors look like they appear in "real life".

I'm thinking quality of camera is the issue, more so than Kelvin of your lighting. Probably the closer you get to 4-5K the better?

There are multiple issues that affect the Caboose cams, one of which is the coating on the camera lenses, the camera itself, and the app/phone you are viewing the footage on. But I've never seen any of the Lionel caboose cams that looked good, so I assume it's the camera.

@Jeff2035 posted:

What is the best Kelvin to get natural colors from the Lionel Caboose Cam?

I currently have 2650 K lamps and the videos from the Caboose Cam has colors that do not look like what I see in the train room. I link the Cam to an iPhone 15, a new iPad, and my wife's iPhone 13 and none of the colors look like they appear in "real life".

The Caboose camera is a cheap Chinese WiFi camera you can buy for $10-15 from a host of overseas sources, I don't think any specific color temperature is going to make it "look natural".

@GG1 4877 posted:

Norm brought up the more important issue than color temperature preference which is ultimately subjective.  CRI or Color Rendition Index is a measurement of how close a light source renders colors in relationship to actual sunlight.  The closer to 100 you can get the better.  Any color temperature with poor CRI will ultimately be less pleasing to the eye.

If you go to a manufacturer's website, typically CRI can be determined from the technical literature that is used by designers and lighting engineers.  The major lighting manufacturers all typically have this information available with some research.

A lot of shop lighting regardless of temp can have a CRI of around 85 which is pretty nasty to look at. I thought about getting LED light bars for layout lighting but a lot of them seem to be best for workbench/general area lighting because of the low CRI.

For digital photography via i-devices I found that the high CRI 5000K lighting doesn't tend to confuse them as much and I can get decent photos and video very quickly without correction. Most I do is "de-warmify" a bit. I never use my digital camera anymore, just iPhone and sometimes iPad these days. They still want to warmify a bit too much for my liking at times.

I have a suspicion that some of the cheaper LEDs tend to yellow after the plastic lenses decay but I could be wrong or just plain nuts. The driver circuits absolutely fail after a while. I have a few left from a batch that will periodically dim for a time then come back to full brightness. I have been replacing them as this happens. These were made by PLT that I got from 1000bulbs.com. Their replacements are from Amazon right now and it should be interesting to see how they hold up.

@CALNNC posted:

Me too, I like soft white temperatures like you got from a 60 watt bulb.  Restaurants that use the high temp LED's  look more like an operating room than a nice place to enjoy a meal.  To add in, I hate with a purple passion LED car headlights.  They might be fine in big cities with boulevards and 4 lane highways, but in the country with winding mountain roads you get blinded on a regular basis.

I long for the "Good Old Days" when EVERYONE had the same headlights. I think this current situation is dangerous. These lights are bad enough if you are driving an SUV and your eyes never pass through the center of the beam of oncoming headlights. However when driving an automobile at times your eyes travel through the center of the beam. If I had to bet it has led to more than one head on collision on winding roads.    

As for the central topic of this thread. I have color calibration software for my desktop computer monitor where I edit photos and this software makes what I see on my monitor match what my prints look like. Does anyone know if such software or App exists for tablets and smartphones ?                                 j

I used 5000K "daylight" bulbs. I bought dimmable ones, but have yet to try dimming them.

Boy, light info is a really good subject, but...how many hours are you getting out of your LED's?  They claim 10 to 15,000 on some, that's a lot, of course depends on how many hours a day times # of days, but are they lasting as long as they claim in your situations?  My electric company, Duke Energy, and with the number of outages from a few hours to several days I get here regularly, we affectionately call it Puke Energy, sells LED bulbs of all kinds, and at one time, sent boxes of them for free.  I have found those bulbs, which are made in China, to be inferior in longevity to bulbs I purchase from Harbor Freight, also made in China of course.  I have 3 LED screw in bulb lamps in my garage that basically stay on for about18 hours a day, and Harbor Freight units last at least 1/3 longer than the ones Duke provides, and 8 months is about the limit.  I am at the end of a dedicated 600 foot secondary where one line transformer feeds 3 houses directly, and me dangling 600 feet away, with my nominal household voltage at the entrance panel is 112-115, so not an over voltage issue.  My sons house, fed directly from that transformer, gets about 120...on a good day.  As a reference point, I have two very old florescent fixtures with starters and magnetic ballasts,  that my dad got as junk from Mayport NAS back in the '50's, which I retrieved and still use.  One of the 3 fixtures has a pair of GE 40 watt lamps with Bakelite end caps in it that are about 71 years old, and still light faster than the other two with more modern lamps.  Reminds me of the firehouse up north, where they have the Edison bulb that has been burning for over 100  years.

@cbojanower posted:

I don't want to get too far off the subject, but all you guys posting pictures of your lights. Unless your camera is set to one color temp, it will auto adjust the white balance (AWB) If you really want to see how the light changes around, you have to set the color balance to one setting, then use that setting with different bulbs.  5500 is considered daylight, 3200 is common for tungsten bulbs.  It's a fun test and you might be surprised to see how much your camera and your eyes adjust to color shifts

Chris has it right. In fact, I did exactly that using  various household LED, Fluorescent, and tungsten bulbs. I compared the  results to the professional Halogen and LED  lights that I use in my  studio and on location. I first set my camera to 3200K which is the standard for the professional studio lights that I use.

(Note: I shoot in Camera Raw with a Nikon D850. When shooting in raw, the camera's color temperature setting is not baked into the digital capture. The color temperature setting when shooting in raw only indicates how to display the photo using that particular color temperature.)  I used Photoshop and a professionally calibrated monitor to compare the results.

So, with camera set to 3200K,  the color shifts between the various home lights and in comparison to the professional 3200K lights were obvious (some more so than others).

However, when I set the color temperature to match the specified temperature of the various lights, the differences were fairly minor and easily correctable by slightly changing the hue.  I suspect the color rendering index (CRI) is what causes this.

The quality of the light will also affect your perception. Fluorescent tubes produce a soft diffuse light (think soft shadows on an overcast day) while incandescent can lights or track lights are much harder (more distinct shadows).

The bottom line here, is to use the type of lighting that is pleasing to you. The caveat is to use a consistent color temperature. Your eyes may not see the difference but your camera will.

Dennis

Jim Barrett did a good article about this in Run 311. Digital subscribers will be able to read this.

Here's a photo from the article.

@CALNNC posted:

...how many hours are you getting out of your LED's?  They claim 10 to 15,000 on some, that's a lot, of course depends on how many hours a day times # of days, but are they lasting as long as they claim in your situations?

On September 8. 2020, I ordered THESE LED lamps on Amazon. They went into a curio case and have been on 24/7 since then. We use them as a downstairs "night light."

As of the day of this posting, they have been on for roughly 28,440 hours.

This is in reference to the question about how long LED's last.

The last company I worked at as a Mechanical Engineer was a commercial lighting manufacturer.  Therefore I needed to understand how LEDs work and how to correctly apply them.  We built our fixtures with custom circuit boards using SMD LED Chips.  Not screw-in light bulbs.

Anyhow LED's don't "burn out" like incandescent bulb filaments or fail like fluorescent lights.  Diodes are solid state devices so they last forever "in theory" if perfectly manufactured.  However they aren't, they have microscopic structural impurities, which cause fractures and result in degradation over time.  The rate of degradation varies with how "pure" the chip is and the environment it operates in.  If you want more details there is all kinds of information on the internet.

To cut to the chase LEDs dim over time.  BTW the degradation and therefore dimming is not linear but exponential.  Anyhow, the hour rating is based on degradation to usually 80% or 70% of the original light output.  This assumes the LED is driven at the correct power and operated in an environment as specified.  One thing that kills LEDs quickly is overheating this can be due to over driving the chip (too much power input) or the environment.  If you look at the common screw in replacements, many say not to be used in totally enclosed luminaires.  This is because it traps heat around the bulb and so the life is drastically shortened.  I have rambled on way to long.  The bottom line is "used properly" high quality LEDs can outlive most of us old guys.

For screw-in replacements buy a reputable brand and read all the fine print that tells how to use the bulb.

@Rich Melvin Unfortunately that article says nothing about how those photos were taken. Most digital cameras on an auto setting will correct for differences in color temperature, making all four photos the same. Given the recency of the article, he likely did not use film, which would not autocorrect, so he must have used some kind of manual setting I'm thinking. I have 5000K "daylight" bulbs in my layout and they do not look remotely blue like the 5000K photo in the article to my eye. They look like bright daylight.

@Rich Melvin posted:

Jim Barrett did a good article about this in Run 311. Digital subscribers will be able to read this.

Here's a photo from the article.

So did Don Keiser in Run 329. I assume nobody ever reads my articles. 🙂🙂

Donald

@Ken Wing posted:

@Rich Melvin Unfortunately that article says nothing about how those photos were taken. Most digital cameras on an auto setting will correct for differences in color temperature, making all four photos the same.

I took a single, properly color balanced photo. Then I changed the color temperature using calibrated color temperature settings in Photoshop. Obviously all four photos are not the same!

@3rail posted:

So did Don Keiser in Run 329. I assume nobody ever reads my articles. 🙂🙂

My apologies, Don. I remembered Jim’s article because I took the photos.

@Rich Melvin posted:

I took a single, properly color balanced photo. Then I changed the color temperature using calibrated color temperature settings in Photoshop. Obviously all four photos are not the same!

Hello Rich. no apologies needed. Just having a little fun. It is all good! Have a good evening.

Don

This series of posts has been very helpful.

As I stated above my Lionel caboose cam did not show colors correctly.

I was using the 2650 K type lamps that came with my track system many years ago.

I purchased dimmable LED lamps with 5000 K and a CRI of 90.

The colors are now correct!

It is great having fine pictures from the caboose cam.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this series of posts.