I don't know what you think, but daylight is essential for all crafters in my opinion. I simply couldn't craft without daylight, and at this time of year that can sometimes be like gold dust! Even in the summer, when I craft in the evening I need to be able to see true colours!
Now I must say I have been the proud owner of a couple of lamps pumping out daylight ever since I started crafting, right back in the days when I mainly did cross stitch and then when I moved onto papercrafting, and I currently have
this one,
(wow, look how tidy and uncluttered my craft room looked in 2009) so I was delighted when the Daylight Lamp Company asked me to independently review one of their new lamps.
I was sent the
Foldi LED lamp, and I was very impressed with it's looks. Now I know that kind of thing isn't that important when judging the lamp on its lighting powers, but it's important to me. I like something that will look good on my desk, and as you can see, this certainly does the job! Now, can you see what else is cool about this lamp...Well along with it's sleek lines, it's completely fold-able, hence it's name! Now I think this is super handy, as it means that you can take along with you to craft crops and clubs, or use downstairs even if you normally craft upstairs for instance, with minimum fuss. That can't be said for my current lamp, which although is fantastic for lighting my desk, isn't at all portable and I wouldn't even consider moving it just for the evening, or even a couple of days.
The other main difference with this lamp and my desk lamp is the way it is powered. Not only can you use batteries (which will give 8 hours of power), but you can also power when connected to a laptop or PC with the USB cable supplied with the lamp. You can also buy a standard power cable from the Daylight lamp company if you want to use in the normal way. My desk lamp can only be powered my that amazing stuff that comes out of sockets in the wall, so can't always be used wherever you want.
Now I see great advantages with this. Sometimes I turn up to do a demonstration, and there is no electricity supply available at the desk. And sometimes the area I'm demonstrating in (particularly at exhibitions) can be quite dark, and this makes it harder for me to see what I'm doing, and harder for the customers to see what I'm up to. With this lamp I can power with batteries (preferably rechargeable) for a full day, with no danger that someone will trip up over the wires from the lamp, and I can see what I'm doing. Bonus!
Another advantage is that I need good light to take photographs of my cards...after all a picture speaks a thousand words, does it not? More often than not, achieving good light is not as simple as it sounds, even in the summer. Shadows are cast in all the wrong places, leading to unprofessional results. And I can't be doing with that ;). SO I use the Foldi and I can place exactly where I need it, connecting it to either my computer or powering with batteries.
Now for the Sciency Bit...So, what's all the fuss about a lamp that provides daylight? Well for starters it provides much more realistic light - simulated daylight! Tungsten light (normal household bulbs) have a yellow base compared to daylight lamps, and therefore give off a yellow tinge to their light. And therefore on anything they land on! Whereas daylight lamps have a colour temperature more in line with daylight and therefore give off a bluer, more realistic light. So what does this mean? The most important thing is it means that when a daylight lamp is used colours are more true, and therefore colour matching is so much easier.
As you can see from the photograph below, the foldi provides loads of the correct type of light to make the colours in my project pop! You can see how dark it is around the outside of the light, and this was taken at 10am in the morning!
Now for some
disadvantages of the lamp...well a review needs to be balanced! The lamp is made up of 30 LED's which cannot be replaced. The thing with LED's is that they last so long that the lamp will last you years and years and years before they give in. Nevertheless, in 30 years time you might want to replace, but can't. ho hum. The other disadvantage is that you can't actually angle the lamp head, you can only flip it up or down. Finally, I think it would be nice to include the power adaptor with the lamp, so you have full choice - but then again, I'm greedy!
So all in all, I love this lamp, I will use it all the time to take photographs of my projects, and when I'm going to my demos.
