Photoflood lamps are a type of

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

designed for use as a continuous light source for

photographic Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed i ...

purposes. The filaments of such lamps are operated at much higher temperatures than is the case for standard, general lighting service lamps. The result is a brilliance of light much higher than the lamp's wattage rating would suggest. The trade off is that the lamp has a very short service life of seldom more than ten hours.

Applications

Past

Photoflood lamps were used by photographers and film makers as a continuous lighting source. However for photographers, such use has been overtaken by the use of high power studio flash units many of which also provide a lower power light for modelling purposes. Film makers have turned to longer lasting tungsten

halogen lamps A halogen lamp (also called tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen, and quartz iodine lamp) is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed in a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a smal ...

which, in their turn, are being overtaken by light-emitting diode (

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light ...

) lamps.

Present

Photoflood lamps are still used in special cases by the motion picture industry. Where an illuminated lamp is required on set as part of the dressing, the light fall from a normal light bulb would not be visible on film as it would be swamped by the bright studio lighting. The ordinary lamp is replaced by a photoflood bulb whose intense light is easily visible on film (and if so required, is bright enough that it can form the sole illumination for the shot).

Lamp characteristics

Photoflood bulbs are available in a number of sizes. The two most common sizes have these characteristics.Specifications
/ref> Note that in each case an ordinary 100 watt lamp is provided for comparison purposes.

References

{{reflist Photographic lighting