Another lighting question

So, in the other thread, a couple of people recommended getting a fluorescent bulb so that I get brighter light. I went to the photography store yesterday, and asked if they had any. The guy there said that it wouldn't be any brighter unless I had a lamp with higher wattage. This didn't make that much sense to me -- I thought that with the flourescent bulb, I could use a brighter bulb that still fit in my 250 W limit. In fact, I didn't think the wattage had that much to do with the brightness -- isn't that measured in lumens?

 

He suggested that I increase my ISO to 400 to get brighter photos, but since I have a point-and-shoot, I'm worried that the picture quality will degrade.

 

So, was the guy at the store wrong? Can I get brighter lighting with a different type of bulb?

 

That doesn't seem right...when we upgraded our house lights to florescent, everything was waaaaay brighter.

I'm pretty sure the same would apply for your lamps.

  PrettyCranium said:

So, in the other thread, a couple of people recommended getting a fluorescent bulb so that I get brighter light. I went to the photography store yesterday, and asked if they had any. The guy there said that it wouldn't be any brighter unless I had a lamp with higher wattage. This didn't make that much sense to me -- I thought that with the flourescent bulb, I could use a brighter bulb that still fit in my 250 W limit. In fact, I didn't think the wattage had that much to do with the brightness -- isn't that measured in lumens?

 

He suggested that I increase my ISO to 400 to get brighter photos, but since I have a point-and-shoot, I'm worried that the picture quality will degrade.

 

So, was the guy at the store wrong? Can I get brighter lighting with a different type of bulb?

 

Aaaaaaand I am pretty sure all our flashes and strobes are measured in Wattage. For example my strobes are 500 watts...

 

Aaaaaaaaand I think LED nowadays gives a very bright light compare to traditional lamps.

  PrettyCranium said:

I thought that with the flourescent bulb, I could use a brighter bulb that still fit in my 250 W limit. In fact, I didn't think the wattage had that much to do with the brightness -- isn't that measured in lumens?

[...]

So, was the guy at the store wrong? Can I get brighter lighting with a different type of bulb?

 

I think he was wrong and yes, it's lumens.

Unless they have "equivalent wattage" - lamp marked as "250W" has in reality only ~60W power consumption (or something around there).

From the same electrical power fluorescent lamps produce much more light. My crude observations are that for the same light there is 4 times less power needed, for example in my kitchen 17W fluorescent replaced the old 75W bulb

 

  AntElitist said:

Aaaaaaand I am pretty sure all our flashes and strobes are measured in Wattage. For example my strobes are 500 watts...

 

Not quite. Energy stored in strobes are measured in Ws - Watt Seconds, because they don't light constantly. It's not Watts, which are measurement of power (for continuous light).

http://light-studio.blogspot.com/2007/10/watt-seconds-vs-effective-watt-seconds.html

Thanks guys. I'm going to look online for a nice bulb, hopefully from Canada. Recommendations welcome!