Fly-tying lamp
About a year ago I stumbled on the Otto lamps here and how people loved them. It seemed that I needed one too but they seemed pricey (actually, I found them obscenely expensive to my Scottish blood). Michaels had a 50% off sale and I spent either $40 or 50 bucks on one. They are nice and I'd recommend them (on sale anyway).
A month or so later I saw a light that looked EXACTLY like my Otto lamp at Office Max for 19.95 and made a mental not to check it out later. Well, the styles seem to have changed but I did buy a "natural" light fluorescent lamp there a week ago. I did some semi-scientific testing this afternoon.
I set both lamps up in the kitchen with no other artificial light sources. There was natural light from a large set of windows about 10' away. I took pictures of a newspaper lighted on one side by the Otto light and the other side by the affordable competition using a Nikon D-50 set to outdoor light white balance. Then I went into Photoshop and compared the color of the white background in various places using the color comparator.
My thinking was simply that using the outdoor white balance I should be able to see how close the lights came to matching the outdoor light. If either one was too cold it would look blue-ish and to warm it would be yellow-ish. I also figured one could see how different they were looking at a photo that was collected using an impartial light sensor rather than relying on the human eye which adapts and processes color to appear balanced.
The Office Max lamp said it was 13 watts and balanced for 6400 degrees K. The Otto lamp was also 13 watts and in Photoshop seem slightly warmer but it was not noticeable to the naked eye. In terms of construction and build quality both lights are well made but the Office Max light has a noticeably heavier base, which was my one gripe with the Otto light - it was easy to knock over. I'd give a modest edge to the OM light in terms of reach and design.
In short, the Office Max "Vision Max" Tensor light looks like one heck of a good deal for someone looking for a lamp producing natural light colors.
In the first two pictures, the Otto light is on the right and the OM light is on the left. In the third photo the Otto light is on the left.
Greybeard
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