Paul's Comments

I have a desk-mounted lamp I use both for working and for taking video in order to make sure it has enough light. I've been using a 95 watt standard incandescent bulb. I had to go over to Home Depot to pick up a sledge hammer anyway (for the mailbox post I will be able to install starting Monday), and I saw a 24-watt (equivalent to 100 watts) Compact Fluorescent bulb on sale in a two pack for about $3.50, which is about 1/2 price. Well, at that price I can take a chance and try it. If it is adequate the package claims you can get 9 years out of it. (Based on 3 hours a day.) That would be nice, Outside of the two that I broke, I've tended to get about six months out of the cheap incandescent bulbs I've been buying. Sure, they cost about 25c but figure that for the small difference I don't have to worry about them blowing out anytime soon.

[Update 2/04/2009]. The purpose wasn't really to save money on electricity. The purpose was for me to - in a low risk test - get some experience in how a CF bulb is used and whether there's things I need to be aware of. For example, it's my understanding because of the much higher levels of mercury that a CF bulb has, if one breaks you're supposed to treat it as if it was a hazardous spill, and be careful. Also, you should not simply dispose of them in the trash. So I try this method, in effect to "dip my toe in the water" and get some experience in their use. With the reduced electricity cost and equivalent lumens, I expect CF bulbs to become much more common. If they get the cost down to where you can save enough from one year's use to justify the difference they're going to really outsell incandescents. If they figure a way to be able to dim them, they'll almost completely replace them. And if they figure a way to get rid of the mercury problem, incandescents will go the way of VHS tape.[End Update].

So when I get home I unscrewed the 95 and put in the 24. Turn on the lamp and it's kind of dim. I notice that only about 1/2 of the bulb is lit, so I get it: these probably either don't have a "ballast" like the fluorescent tubes in offices have, or it's a slow ballast. (I have no idea what a ballast is, I presume it's something like a spark plug and it's used to start a fluorescent.) It takes about a minute or two before it's "heated up" and sure enough, it's either as much light as the 100 watt (well 95 watt to be precise) incandescent or so close I can't tell the difference. [Update 1/24/2009] Apparently the slow start is only the first time it's used. I turned the lamp on today and it completely came on in full brightness. [End Update].

What I will probably do is try doing some video and see how it looks; you might fool my eye, but you can't fool the camera. It needs lots of light. And we'll see if the level of light is similar or the same. One thing I'll advise people, which is not a problem for me, but it says that they are not dimmable. So if you're going to use a CF you can't run them using a dimmer. Since I'm running it to get full lumens and generally do not want to dim it, it is not a problem for me. The lamps in the ceiling of my room are dimmable, so if I want partial light, that's what I can use.