GE Reveal Bulbs

June 4, 2005

This is gonna sound like a topic of small concern to people used to working with expensive lighting sets but... for guys working very cheaply with DV video it might be worth mentioning.

GE came out with some regular incandescent bulbs for home use last year called "Reveal" that were advertised as giving rooms a more natural color and lighting as apposed to the yellowish look that other bulbs give off. I bought a few thinking they might be better to read by in my nightstand light. Boy are they! I ended up putting them in every fixture in the house and everything really does look MUCH better with them.

I also tried some 150 watt bulbs in some cheap clamp-on light fixtures I have to see how they would look with camcorder footage. I don't have any expensive lighting and generally just use some halogen work lights for DV work. These Reveal bulbs however give me the best white balance I've ever gotten by far. They really do look great in any room and the colors in my cam footage look better than they ever have. I recently got some Reveal floodlight bulbs to experiment with in a spotlight situation. I can't get over how great my footage looks with these bulbs. Unfortunately I haven't found them in anything higher than 150 watts so far. But if you can use a rack of them to fill a room with light and are just shooting with a DV cam, do indeed try these bulbs out.

Here's what they look like if you go hunting for them (any Walmart/Big K will have them):

http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting...reveal_main.htm

Landon D. Parks · June 4, 2005

Mom bought some for the house a yesterday. They seem ok, but I don't notice any major difference. They do make thing look more natural though.

June 4, 2005

Mom bought some for the house a yesterday. They seem ok, but I don't notice any major difference.
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Wait till you get old. B)

Coincidentally, I just commented on one of your questions about copyrights in another forum.

Rik Andino · June 5, 2005

Unfortunately I haven't found them in anything higher than 150 watts so far.

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You can get Photoflo light bulbs...

Which vary in range from 150w to 500w If I'm not mistaken.

They're you're normal incandescent edison light bulb

Cept unlike other light bulbs they're rated either at 3200K Tungsten Balanced

Or 4800K which is closer to Daylight balanced than the average bulb...

The GM Reveal series is similar to the Philips

And the Sylvania's natural light bulb series...

Which tries to recreate Daylight...they're pretty good...

I've used some in a Chinese Lantern and on scoop lights...& they're cool

but for praciticals nothing beats the normal orange glowing bulb.

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · June 5, 2005

I've used the 100w Reveals in practicals a few times and they are close to being 3200K. They only last about half as long as a regular 100w lightbulb though.

Dan Salzmann · June 5, 2005

If they are so close to regular incandescent bulbs why do things look different when lit by them?

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · June 5, 2005

Well they're not as low a color temp as a regular incandescent bulb. They are coated blue but they are not daylight like a photoflood.

June 6, 2005

Thanks for the info guys.

Actually, I kind of agree with Landon that the difference isn't huge or anything. It depends on the room your in and the color of the walls and whatnot. But regular bulbs tend to give off a yellow haze and if you've got off-white walls they'll look very yellowish or orangish with typical incandescent bulbs. With the Reveal bulbs they look the color they're supposed to. I would guess that in a room covered with a dark wallpaper that you wouldn't notice much of a difference. Also, the Reveal bulbs are a lot easier for me to read by. I'm 46 though and my right eye doesn't focus so great anymore. A young person may not notice the difference so much.

But what really caught my attention was after I video-taped myself sitting in my studio, once without the Reveal bulbs and once with them. The footage just looked a lot more natural with the Reveal bulbs. I've got a camcorder that seems to have a lot of reds though, so that's part of why the Reveal bulbs helped so much.

Give em a try though. They're cheap enough to play around with.