EGO, the light for SAD (Winter Blues) Intervention

My design work for the Columbia University's Clinical Chronobiology and Winter Depression Programs under Dr. Michael Terman led to the development of light diffusion systems for Dawn and Dusk Simulation over sleeping and waking subject and then to lightboxes for suppression of melatonin as it seems to relate to winter blues by improvement of sleep and mood especially due to lack of light in the short winter days or lack of light due to the corporate light deprivation in most workspace cubicles. This version of EGO is re-marketed with two special high output 32 Watt 4100K lamps at SphereOne.com, owned by the CET group - so a portion of sales goes back into research.

EGO, the light for EBay product photography

As this blog has already covered - the classic product photograph has a top light overhead and a side light near the camera. So two EGOs, one atop a tripod and one self standing hnxt to the camera position solve 99% of every EBay power seller imaging need. Take a look at the rest of this blog for examples of every thing from soup to nuts - OK bread to bones.

EGO, the light for Video Blogging

Tired of looking twenty years older than Noah while spouting the wisdom of the ages? Yes, it is true that video cameras are now so sensitive you can light your face from the monitor - that's cool, really cool! as the monitors have a native white point that is somewhere in the very blue 7000 or 9000 degrees Kelvin. And your light source is ghoulishly coming from below your camera position. Look at some of these faces on bloggingheads.

Better to compliment yourself and your viewers with a 5000K high color (92 CRI) wide spectrum beauty light - the Lowel EGO was designed to make products photograph even better than life and you are your best product, so....follows.. and it's much cheaper than surgery.

EGO, the light for Art and Craft Work and Reproduction

Any flat art larger than a scanbed is a problem to digitize for the web or print. But with a good digital camera and the four EGOs with two tripods shown here, you could reproduce any flat art and painting up to four by six feet - goal is to cross light at 30 degrees off center from the four corners of the art work - so you are limited only by the height of your tripods or lightstands. Perhaps a bit expensive - as pictured, about $600. Could also be used a painter's daylight high color tasklight as they create the art.

EGO, the light for Museum Conservation

My 200 Watt SCANDLES has done very well with museum and private conservators or art and artifacts due to high color daylight lamps that lack UV and IR (heat). But at $1500 per fixure, it's a bit pricy and specialized. The EGO's first conservation client was the New York Public Library, so that each conservator could have their own high color, but low cost tasklight. Self standing or atop a tripod, cost is still below $200.

EGO - the light for viewing Wine Clarity and Hue

Last night I had a conversation with a winery in Oregon looking for a daylight, color critical, fluorescent SINGLE light bulb for visual examination of wine clarity, color and turbidity. After my explaination about CRI and 5500K, I suggest they take a look at the EGO's website, but the answer was "oh, we're not looking for photo lights". That's my fault. To me, lighting with the wide spectrum high color EGO meant lighting anything with EGO - so yes OK imaging was the first market - but anything else, visual or imaged, is the next market(s).

EGO could easily be the new standard at wine tastings every where as, without a visual repeatable stable standard, the winery in Spain cannot know what the problem is when their shipment reached Oregon, and etc. Just as my Scandles has become a examination standard for condition reporting at world museums - Guggenheim New York needs the same lighting standard as the Guggenheim Venice as Bilboa.

You can buy the single EGO or a pair already on Amazon - but if your winery needs some quantity let me know - also such a light makes an easy POP display in wine shops everywhere.

Next blog will show four other EGO uses other than photography and imaging.